LSU math professor backs junk calculation in Monckton paper

WorldNetDaily continues to push crank analysis of the President’s birth certificate. I wrote in my article “Miscalculating the odds” about Christopher “Lord” Monkton’s silly foray into probability theory, where he calculates the probability that President Obama’s birth certificate is legitimate at 0.0000000000000000000016. The analysis is so totally goofy that I largely dismissed it after pointing out the basic mathematical fallacies.

I was terribly disappointed today to find out that the Associate Chair of Mathematics for Instruction at Louisiana State University, Dr. Charles N. Delzell, backs Monckton’s analysis in an affidavit. Despite four and a half pages of text, praising and validating that one irrelevant thing after another in Monckton’s paper is right, I was hard pressed to find anything saying that what Monckton concluded is either correct or valid in approach. The best I could find is this from paragraph 8:

It seems very unlikely that any of the irregularities specified in Monckton’s list of probabilities could possibly have occurred by inadvertence as often as this.

and this in paragraph 9:

For these reasons, and subject only to the fact that I have not verified the forensic investigators’ results, Monckton’s conclusion, based on those results, that the relevant documentation is nearly-certainly forged necessarily follows, mathematically speaking.

I just sent the following letter to Robert Perlis, Chair of the Department of Mathematics at Louisiana State University.

An affidavit signed by Prof. Charles Delzell came to my attention today. In this affidavit, Prof. Delzell examines a statistical analysis done by an English eccentric, Lord Monckton, that purports to prove that the birth certificate released by the President of the United States is a fake.

I hold a Masters Degree in Mathematics, earned under some distinguished graduates of LSU, and I can say without a doubt that the analysis and statements in the affidavit are total and complete junk as far as probability theory goes.

I would suggest that to prevent the University from becoming a laughing stock, that you refer these papers to someone qualified in probability theory to verify that they are junk, and then take the appropriate damage control action.

I received an email reply from Dr. Perlis at LSU. I generally treat the emails that I receive as private and so I will only repeat what I am confident that he would want said and that is that Delzell was writing as a private individual and that the Mathematics Department at LSU is not involved.

It’s hard to believe that this DUNCE is allowed to call himself Professor – or I can only speculate how someone so versed in mathematics can get basic probability logic so horribly wrong.

The point that he doesn’t get is the following, and is from an argument I usually bring when an ID proponent claims that life cannot have developed by chance because of the high improbability of that development:

Suppose you have a stack of 52 cards and shuffle them, then draw all cards from the stack. The probability that you got exactly that sequence is ridiculously low (I don’t remember how low, but way less than one in a trillion trillion trillion).

Now comes Captain Hindsight and says: “The probability that exactly this sequence occurred is so low as to be practically zero, therefore X”, where X is one of

(1) you cheated and drew this sequence on purpose using rigged cards

(2) God/the Creator made you draw this sequence

(3) our senses are fooling us and that sequence was never actually drawn.

The logical fallacy is to apply an ex ante probability (“how probable is it that I will draw the following sequence: ace of clubs, 2 of hearts, …”) to an ex post observation (“I drew this sequence, how probable was that?”).

—————-

(When facing ID, this is called the anthropic principle – in all the other cases where life could not have originated, nobody would be there to ask the question.)

The same is happening here – once you have a document with 10 “irregularities”, you cannot deny its existence or authenticity based on the misapplication of the probability “if I draw one random document, how probable is it that it will have these 10 ‘irregularities’?”.

And I think any professor of mathematics, even if not a statistician, should know that applying ex ante probabilities as an ex post argument to judge validity is just as stupid as it gets.

So I don’t know what the guy is – a birther or just someone who thought he could make a quick buck by giving a shoddy expert opinion. Either way, it’s a disgrace to the field of mathematics.
And quite possibly the first time the most neutral science of all has been abused for political gain.

Let’s say I roll that die 20 times in a row, and write down, in succession, each number that appears. At the end of my 20 rolls, I’ll have a string of 20 integers, each between 1 and 6.

Now suppose that I take that string of 20 integers and I show it to Chris Monckton, saying “This is a string of 20 numbers that I produced by rolling a die 20 times.”

Monckton’s response: “That’s highly unlikely. For each of those rolls, there’s only a 1 in 6 chance that you could’ve produced a given integer, and each roll is an independent act. Which means there’s only a 1 in 3.6 quadrillion chance that you could’ve produced *THIS* 20-digit number.”

Now obviously, my number’s not fake. Any series of 20 rolls will produce a 20-digit number, and any given 20-digit number only has a 1 in 3.6 quadrillion chance of being the final result.

And that only illustrates the fallacy of his backward-looking analysis; it doesn’t even begin to touch on the made-up ‘odds’ that he assigned to each anomaly.

It’s not surprising that a crank like Monckton would fail to recognize this problem. But it’s sad that a math professor would too.

I keep telling birthers they need to get this information along with Sheriff Arpaio’s findings to their Senators and Congressman, especially Senator Tom Coburn. Senator Coburn was unwilling to listen to Arpaio probably because he thought Obama wasn’t going to be re-elected and did not want to damage the GOP’s chance given the media response on the birther issue. Now that Obama has been re-elected, Senator Coburn may be willing to listen.

Coburn or another Senator and a Congressman can file a written objection with Joint Session of Congress in January protesting to Obama’s votes over this issue. By filing an objection, the election process STOPS. Congress is CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED AND REQUIRED TO DEBATE AND DEPOSE THE ISSUE BEFORE PROCEEDING FURTHER. CONGRESS CANNOT IGNORE IT.

Speaking of reverse analysis, I see where the U of Colorado professors, Bickers and Berry, now say that their past-performance prediction that Romney was going to win with 320 EVs would have worked, too, if it wasn’t for that meddling hurricane.

First of all, a major KUDOS to Doc for writing to the department chair on this. This is a sad outrage and nothing but an ideological/political abuse of a true, pure science by a bitter butt-hurt wackjob that should know better.

This is nothing more than another sad story of hate/fear driving someone to be truly crazy and betray everything they’ve learned and known, all for the sake of their new “born again” beliefs… this kook suffers from ODS, so he’s willed himself to believe in anything bad about Obama over real logic, because his desire for confirmation bias to justifiy his irrational emotional state means that “magic thinking” has now replaced the actual learning and knowledge that got him to where he was in life.

As someone who also graduated from a college math degree program, I’m also furious and disgusted to see the field and profession abused by this delusional charlatan.

But then again, my department (Math & CS were one combined department back in those days, hence really why my degrees are in those fields) had a tenured crazy prof, who always was allowed to teach certain math and computer classes, even though there were endless complaints about how completely nuts and terrible his teaching skills were….all because he had become a “born again” Flat Earther (seriously, I’ve talked about him before – he’s still one of the big names in that crazy movement). He was actually a nice person, but completely nuts and worthless as a prof, to where even simple subjects became incomprehenisble disaster courses for his unfortunate students. I knew a lot of smart and talented classmates who barely passed or failed his courses…(even something as simple as COBOL programming)…not because they were stupid, but because his craziness had turned him into that incapable of teaching and communicating simple concepts…but regardless of complaints, that was as far as my college would go – keeping his full-time teaching schedule to as much of a minimum as posible and only letting him teach along the entry level math or computer classes offered.

So yeah, reporting and complaining about this Delzell nut and his sham ideological endorsement of pure cr@p is the right thing to do… If the guy has tenure, they might not be able to get rid of him…but at least they should be able to distance their university from his irrational political nonsense and hopefully take away anything but the most low-level and basic classes from him. I feel sorry for the students who have to waste their schedule and college tuition dealing with him. I personally understand what that can mean.

The Magic M: (When facing ID, this is called the anthropic principle – in all the other cases where life could not have originated, nobody would be there to ask the question.)
The same is happening here – once you have a document with 10 “irregularities”, you cannot deny its existence or authenticity based on the misapplication of the probability “if I draw one random document, how probable is it that it will have these 10 ‘irregularities’?”. And I think any professor of mathematics, even if not a statistician, should know that applying ex ante probabilities as an ex post argument to judge validity is just as stupid as it gets.
So I don’t know what the guy is – a birther or just someone who thought he could make a quick buck by giving a shoddy expert opinion. Either way, it’s a disgrace to the field of mathematics.

And quite possibly the first time the most neutral science of all has been abused for political gain. (And yes, I’m quite appalled, being a mathematician myself.)

*yawn* John, we know this is your current position and desperate delusional hope. This is pretty much all you’ve talked about, since Obama was re-elected.

So guess what – we KNOW that is what you want. You don’t need to keep repeating yourself here, as NONE of us are going to help you with your latest quixotic fail quest.

You are just wasting your time here, when you could be wasting your time actually writing to those Senators and Congressman about what you want them to do here…

…but then again, I think you know darn well that Tom Coburn and the rest will do nothing more than file your “requests” with all the rest of their birther requests they’ve received over the past 4 years – in the trash bin, where they belong.

Sorry John, but no matter how many whiney, crazy or threaty letters you folks harass your congress critters with, it won’t lead to a different result.

Obama’s election will be certified by both the EC and the joint session of congress, just as it should be…and the delusions of birtherism are completely irrelevant to that. Sorry, but its true…and the sooner you come to terms with that, the better.

john:
I keep telling birthers they need to get this information along with Sheriff Arpaio’s findings to their Senators and Congressman, especially Senator Tom Coburn.Senator Coburn was unwilling to listen to Arpaio probably because he thought Obama wasn’t going to be re-elected and did not want to damage the GOP’s chance given the media response on the birther issue.Now that Obama has been re-elected, Senator Coburn may be willing to listen.

Coburn or another Senator and a Congressman can file a written objection with Joint Session of Congress in January protesting to Obama’s votes over this issue.By filing an objection, the election process STOPS.Congress is CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED AND REQUIRED TO DEBATE AND DEPOSE THE ISSUE BEFORE PROCEEDING FURTHER.CONGRESS CANNOT IGNORE IT.

Obama’s Mathematicians and Behavioral Psychologists are the real unsung heroes of the 2012 election.

Barack Obama is the first president since Ronald Reagan in 1984 to win a majority of the popular vote in consecutive elections and only the third candidate to do so since Franklin Roosevelt. Since 1824, the first year that official popular vote totals were tabulated, only seven presidents have won a majority of the popular vote in consecutive elections:
Obama, Reagan, Eisenhower, FDR, MCkinley, Grant and Jackson.

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” (M. Twain)

This sort of analysis is along the lines of saying “it is statistically virtually impossible for Mount St Helens to have erupted on May 18, 1980 at 8:32 AM Pacific Time.” It ignores that the mountain did erupt on that date and time, but “statistically” it’s highly improbable.

john:
I keep telling birthers they need to get this information along with Sheriff Arpaio’s findings to their Senators and Congressman, especially Senator Tom Coburn.Senator Coburn was unwilling to listen to Arpaio probably because he thought Obama wasn’t going to be re-elected and did not want to damage the GOP’s chance given the media response on the birther issue.Now that Obama has been re-elected, Senator Coburn may be willing to listen.

Coburn or another Senator and a Congressman can file a written objection with Joint Session of Congress in January protesting to Obama’s votes over this issue.By filing an objection, the election process STOPS.Congress is CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED AND REQUIRED TO DEBATE AND DEPOSE THE ISSUE BEFORE PROCEEDING FURTHER.CONGRESS CANNOT IGNORE IT.

Again …. why the birfer obsession with Coburn ….? Because Miki Booth or whichever birfer it was wrote him a letter? Haven’t de birfers written ALL of the Senators letters?

If you’re goin got place your current, last, best crazy hope in a Senator, please at least have sense enough to pick a crazy one….one that goes in for the conspiracy theories …. like that other one from Okieland.

John: Pray tell, do you really expect a majority of House and Senate members to refuse to ratify Obama’s election? Please do a hypotthetical for us.
Let’s assume that Coburn, or some other senator, and a House member, does what you fervently hope for. Then what?
What will the vote then be? Please specify figures for the House, and the Senate.
For myself, I don’t see anyone in the Senate going down this rabbit hole. The House, yes, possibly; from time to time several members have hinted at birther beliefs, and some have even survived re-election campaigns.
But I don’t consider it impossible that a member of each chamber would raise this objection. So I’m asking you, John, to man up, and say how you believe the vote will go. Don’t be afraid to stand behind your beliefs. Remember, this applies only if there’s an objection made in each chamber.

Rickey: Professor Delzell is a global warming denier, which probably explains how he got hooked up with Monckton.

Thanks for that Rickey; it certainly helps to explain the connection between the two. I note in his affidavit that Dr. Delzell prefaced his endorsement by saying he only endorses Monkton’s math if the work of his “expert” forensic examiners is accurate. That seems like a convenient way for the professor to extricate himself if necessary.

Rickey: Professor Delzell is a global warming denier, which probably explains how he got hooked up with Monckton.

Nice work, Rickey … even though it completely sucks the mystery right out of it. It never changes, does it?

CND’s affidavit if 50% resumé …. and not a jot nor tittle that demonstrates an authority on probability. At least he limited his endorsement to MoncktonMath, didn’t further soil himself by holding forth on documents.

john:
I keep telling birthers they need to get this information along with Sheriff Arpaio’s findings to their Senators and Congressman, especially Senator Tom Coburn.Senator Coburn was unwilling to listen to Arpaio probably because he thought Obama wasn’t going to be re-elected and did not want to damage the GOP’s chance given the media response on the birther issue.Now that Obama has been re-elected, Senator Coburn may be willing to listen.

Coburn or another Senator and a Congressman can file a written objection with Joint Session of Congress in January protesting to Obama’s votes over this issue.By filing an objection, the election process STOPS.Congress is CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED AND REQUIRED TO DEBATE AND DEPOSE THE ISSUE BEFORE PROCEEDING FURTHER.CONGRESS CANNOT IGNORE IT.

I don’t have a problem with the math, but I do have a problem with the equation. By that I mean the equation assumes the truth of certain things to make the equation and therefore the conclusion true. If those assumptions were true, the math would work. However, since the assumptions are false it all falls apart.

Doc C, are you aware of the rumors that Lord MoncKton is really just another characterization portrayed by Sascha Baron Cohen of Borat fame? I have no idea if that is true but I just thought I would mention it

I received an email reply from Dr. Perlis at LSU. I generally treat the emails that I receive as private and so I will only repeat what I am confident that he would want said and that is that Delzell was writing as a private individual and that the Mathematics Department at LSU is not involved.

I should like to reply to various suggestions here that Monckton had erred in determining the probability that Mr Obama’s birth certificate is genuine and that, explicitly or by implication, I had erred in endorsing his method.

A. Misstating Monckton’s argument

I begin with a group of four criticisms (numbered A.1-A.4 below), all making essentially the same point in different ways. The criticisms should be in bold face (if my amateur html code is right); my replies are in Roman face.

“The big fallacy, and I don’t know a formal name for it, is to take any event that already happened and then assign a probability to it having happened. Say the winning lottery number is 1 4 6 9 18 21 22 5 7. It makes no sense to say that the odds against that number coming up were a zillion to one and conclude that the lottery must be rigged.”

A.2. “The Magic M,” November 14 (above):

“… Suppose you have a stack of 52 cards and shuffle them, then draw all cards from the stack. The probability that you got exactly that sequence is ridiculously low (I don’t remember how low, but way less than one in a trillion trillion trillion).

“Now comes Captain Hindsight and says:

“ ‘The probability that exactly this sequence occurred is so low as to be practically zero, therefore X’, where X is one of

“ ‘(1) you cheated and drew this sequence on purpose using rigged cards

“ ‘(2) God/the Creator made you draw this sequence

“ ‘(3) our senses are fooling us and that sequence was never actually drawn.’

“The logical fallacy is to apply an ex ante probability (‘how probable is it that I will draw the following sequence: ace of clubs, 2 of hearts, …’) to an ex post observation (‘I drew this sequence, how probable was that?’)….

“The same is happening here–once you have a document with 10 ‘irregularities’, you cannot deny its existence or authenticity based on the misapplication of the probability ‘if I draw one random document, how probable is it that it will have these 10 “irregularities”?…’ “

A.3. “Loren,” November 14 (above):

“… Let’s say I roll that die 20 times in a row, and write down, in succession, each number that appears. At the end of my 20 rolls, I’ll have a string of 20 integers, each between 1 and 6.

“Now suppose that I take that string of 20 integers and I show it to Chris Monckton, saying ‘This is a string of 20 numbers that I produced by rolling a die 20 times.’

“Monckton’s response: ‘That’s highly unlikely. For each of those rolls, there’s only a 1 in 6 chance that you could’ve produced a given integer, and each roll is an independent act. Which means theres only a 1 in 3.6 quadrillion chance that you couldve produced *THIS* 20-digit number.’

“Now obviously, my number’s not fake. Any series of 20 rolls will produce a 20-digit number, and any given 20-digit number only has a 1 in 3.6 quadrillion chance of being the final result.

“And that only illustrates the fallacy of his backward-looking analysis; it doesn’t even begin to touch on the made-up odds that he assigned to each anomaly.”

A.4. “Norbrook,” Nov. 14 (above):

“This sort of analysis is along the lines of saying it is statistically virtually impossible for Mount St Helens to have erupted on May 18, 1980 at 8:32 AM Pacific Time. It ignores that the mountain did erupt on that date and time, but statistically its highly improbable.”

My reply to A.1: In the lottery example, let us first assume, for definiteness, that the official rules of this particular lottery declare that each number in the sequence will be between 1 and 40. Let X be the first number to be drawn in the winning sequence. Thus, after the drawing (1 4 6 9 18 21 22 5 7), we know that X = 1 in the A.1 example above. Before the drawing takes place, we would have said that P(X = 1) = 1/40. But this is not analogous to what Monckton did, contrary to A.1’s claim. What would be analogous would be to assign some value to:
P(the result X = 1 was random | X = 1),
i.e., the probability that the occurrence of 1 as the first number in the sequence was random, given that that first number was 1. Since there is, presumably, nothing erroneous or wrong or illegal or suspicious or “out of bounds” or irregular about the result X = 1 (and assuming we have no other reason to be suspicious), we could assign the value 1.0 to this conditional probability; to be cautious, however, let us assign the value 0.9999. We would make a similar assignment for the other eight numbers in the winning sequence. Whether we assume these 9 probabilities are independent or not, the result would be that the probability that the entire sequence was random is at least (0.9999)^9 = 0.9991…. Thus, Monckton’s method, no matter how we (properly) adapt it to the lottery example, does not lead us to conclude that the lottery is rigged, contrary to A.1. Thus, A.1 has knocked down a straw man, but has not laid a glove on Monckton’s actual argument.

As I said, there is, presumably, nothing objectively wrong or irregular about the occurrence of any of the numbers 1 4 6 9 18 21 22 5 7 in the lottery sequence. This contrasts with the birth certificate situation, where, according to the investigators, some features of the birth certificate were objectively wrong or irregular (e.g., the word “African” on the line for race in 1962).

Thus, we will have to modify this lottery example if we want it to match Monckton’s situation more closely:

Suppose, now, that the official rules of this particular lottery declare that each number in the sequence will be between 1 and 20 (and not 40, as before). Then the occurrence of the numbers 21 and 22 in the above sequence acquire the status of anomalies. (There are two possible versions of this example: one in which we are getting only a secondhand, possibly garbled report of the lottery sequence, and the other in which we are getting firsthand knowledge of the sequence.)

Either way, let Y denote the fifth number in the winning sequence; thus, after the drawing, we know that Y = 21. We could then try to assign some value to:
P(the anomaly Y = 21 occurred by inadvertence (as opposed to foul play) | Y = 21),
i.e., the probability of the event A that the first anomaly (21) occurred by inadvertence, given that the first anomaly occurred. Likewise we could assign some value to the corresponding conditional probability of the event B that the second anomaly (22) occurred by inadvertence.

In this example it may not be realistic to assume that A and B are independent, since those two events are so similar to each other, and so multiplication is not appropriate here. In this respect, the analogy breaks down (as all analogies do, eventually); but this modified example is still closer to Monckton’s situation than A.1’s original example is.

My reply to A.2: Likewise, in A.2’s example of drawing cards, there is, presumably, nothing objectively wrong or irregular about the occurrence of any of the various cards in the sequence. So we must modify this example to make it match the birth certificate situation: Suppose, now, that one of the 52 cards drawn is a Joker, and that, moreover, two of the cards are Aces of Spades. These two aspects of our sequence of cards are anomalies, and we can try to assign probabilities to the events A and B that the first and second anomalies occurred by inadvertence, respectively. Here it is plausible to assume that the events A and B are independent,
and so multiplication is appropriate.

Returning to A.2’s situation where there are no anomalies, A.2 is computing P(a particular sequence S of cards occurred); as he says, this is close to 0 (it is 1/(52!)). But the proper analogy to Monckton would have been to compute
P(the occurrence of S was by inadvertence | S occurred);
this would be close to 1, if not exactly equal to 1, if there are no anomalies or other reasons for suspicion.

My reply to A.3: A.3’s example of rolling a particular die 20 times can be criticized in a way similar to my critique of the lottery sequence or the card sequence examples in A.1 and A.2 above.

My reply to A.4: Finally, A.4’s example of Mount St. Helens erupting at a particular time, suffers from the defect that there is, as before, presumably, nothing objectively irregular or suspicious about this eruption occurring at any particular time (assuming this volcano was known to be active at all). Thus, there is no anomaly in this example, and hence no question of whether any anomaly has occurred by inadvertence. I am not sure how to modify this example so as to make it fit the birth certificate situation; I leave the task of this modification as an exercise.

B. Three other objections

The first two of these three other objections are from Dr. Conspiracy’s “Miscalculating the odds” above:

My reply: Presumably B.1 considers that for some of the investigators’ anomalies in the birth certificate, the probabilities that those respective anomalies occurred by inadvertence are dependent. But I don’t find any specifics in his article. Is he claiming dependent inadvertence probabilities for every subset of the set of those anomalies? Or for just a couple of those anomalies? Or what?

B.2. “The second big mistake is to assign a probability to certain characteristics of the certificate PDF. For example, Monckton says that the chance that the registrar date stamp is in a separate clipping region is 1 in 100. This is a made up number. In fact given the hardware and software combination, the chances should be 1 or 0 for a given document since the process is algorithmic.”

My reply: Probability calculations depend on the context of what we know and don’t know at the time of the calculation. The fact that a process is algorithmic does not imply that the probability of any particular, binary result of that process must be 0 or 1, unless we have:

(a) specific knowledge of what that algorithm is, and
(b) the time and resources necessary to let that algorithm run to conclusion.

Ad (a): There is ambiguity in B.2’s opening clause above: “given the hardware and software combination, …”: it could mean (1) that we already know what hardware and software were used to scan the birth certificate, or (2) that if we knew what hardware and software were used, then the probability should be 0 or 1. My understanding is that we don’t know, at present, what hardware and software were used, so he must have meant (2) above, not (1). Monckton’s context is that at present we don’t know what algorithm was used, so B.2’s conclusion that this probability must be 0 or 1 is not warranted. But one correct consequence of B.2’s idea is that if Hawaii’s officials would simply disclose the model # of the hardware and software they used to scan the BC, then we could settle some or all of the questions about the pdf-related anomalies found by the investigators.

(Ad (b): It is somewhat off topic, but here is an example for (b) above: Let n = 8543 + 2^1191375. Then P(n is composite) < 1/10^650, according to http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=10754 . Thus n is a “probable prime.” Since n has 358,640 decimal digits, the known, general-purpose, deterministic algorithms for checking whether a given integer is prime will require excessive time to determine whether this n is prime. Until someone finds a specialized algorithm or specialized theorem that can settle the primality of this particular n in a reasonable time, I see no ground to say that P(n is prime) is therefore 0 or 1 (contrary to B.2), even though this question is algorithmic (in fact, elementary recursive in n).)

B.3. “brygenon”, Sept. 27 (comment to “Miscalculating the Odds”):

“Even independent and correct probabilities multiplied together are not the net probability of the default hypothesis. Any particular observable outcome has a probability less than one, so its a one-way trip arbitrarily close to zero whether the document is authentic or not.

When we go looking for anything we can always find something. When we look in many places for the unusual, we will usually find it. See the recent ig Nobel prize winner, Neural Correlates of Interspecies Perspective Taking in the Post-Mortem Atlantic Salmon: An Argument For Proper Multiple Comparisons Correction. Birthers fail to apply proper multiple comparison correction around their dead fish.”

My reply: First, multiplying more and more numbers strictly between 0 and 1 will produce a strictly decreasing sequence, as B.3 says, but that “one-way trip” will not necessarily get arbitrarily close to zero. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to give an explicit, infinite sequence of numbers between 0 and 1 whose successive partial products converge to any prescribed number in the half-open interval [0,1).

Second, B.3’s argument, if correct, would seem to imply that forensic document examination is always futile, and all suspect documents throughout history must be assumed genuine.

As a teacher for almost 40 years, I have graded a lot of tests and homework papers, and on a few of them I have suspected cheating (usually in the form of copying from someone else in the class). And as an administrator for two years, I have received reports of suspected cheating from a fair number of my colleagues and teaching assistants. As the grader goes through his stack of test papers, he may, on any given test, find some right answers and some wrong or partially wrong answers. Wrong answers by themselves are not anomalous in a classroom situation. Also, it is hard to predict all possible mistakes that students can make on a complex, multi-step problem; thus, it is somewhat anomalous when two students make the same mistake(s) on a particular problem. Likewise, it is hard to predict or prescribe the format in which a student will present a complicated, handwritten answer (right or wrong); thus, it is somewhat anomalous when two students use the same format on some problem. A third type of anomaly is the case where the test instructs the student to show all intermediate steps in a complex, multi-step problem, but the student either omits or goofs up one or more of those intermediate steps, and nevertheless miraculously gets the final answer right.

Now, when a grader finds just one of the above anomalies on some test paper, it may arouse in him a small amount of suspicion that that student had cheated. If the grader finds two or more such anomalies on the same test paper, his suspicion is increased. The largest number of anomalies I can recall having found on a single test was approximately a dozen—but that was a two-hour final exam. On a one-hour test, I can’t recall ever having found more than half a dozen anomalies. The threshold for me and my colleagues seems to be approximately three anomalies: if three or more are found, then the faculty member usually refers the case for further investigation and possible prosecution, and the student usually confesses.

Now, if one of my colleagues reported a series of such test-paper anomalies to B.3, B.3 would, presumably, reply: “When we go looking for anything we can always find something. When we look in many places for the unusual, we will usually find it. Better not to investigate for possible cheating.” The high confession rate is empirical evidence that B.3’s argument is wrong, and that the math professors’ approach (which is similar to Monckton’s) is right.

The only difference between Monckton’s approach and that of myself and of the many math professors and TA’s I have talked to is that I, at least, don’t consciously and explicitly assign a probability to the event that any particular anomaly on a test paper was caused by inadvertence, as Monckton did for the birth certificate anomalies. But the idea is the same: other things being equal, the more anomalies (and assuming these anomalies are independent), the more likely there was foul play.

B.3 referred to an amusing ig Nobel paper, which, if I understand it correctly, showed that lots of false positives show up when we examine the 130,000 voxels in a certain three-dimensional image, and that corrective statistical analysis is needed to avoid absurd conclusions. In the case of grading tests, we are looking for only a handful of types of anomalies (such as the three above), and even after multiplying by the number of problems on a typical test (8?), we get a “checklist” of length 24, approximately, not 130,000. I suspect (but admittedly do not know) that those investigating the birth certificate had a collective checklist of comparable size.

(In this context, the fact that the critics A.1-A.4 above all misstated Monckton’s simple idea (as I have tried to explain carefully above), and in the same way in each case, and that even B.3 referred to the analysis in A.1 as “technically astute,” could be construed as five anomalies on a homework assignment. But I leave it to those with experience in grading tests to estimate (either intuitively or arithmetically) the probability that the occurrence of these anomalies was the result of good-faith confusion.)

Summary: Monckton’s method is indeed assessing a true probability, and not, as suggested by critics A.1-A.4, the probability of an event whose outcome is already known: for it is not known whether the White House document is genuine. To the extent that the anomalies to which Monckton has assigned probabilities are dissimilar or apparently unrelated to each other, and assuming they were all inadvertent, most if not all of them would indeed be independent of one another, and so multiplying their probabilities to establish the overall probability of genuineness is the correct approach, contrary to B.1’s suggestion. Though B.2 criticizes Monckton for having assigned arbitrary probabilities to the various irregularities law enforcement investigators have found in the document, Monckton adopted a reasonable approach by explicitly stating his assumptions, by drawing attention to the fact that other probabilities might be chosen, and also by considering a scenario in which each of the irregularities might have occurred by inadvertence as much as half the time. B.2 criticizes him for having assigned a 1 in 100 probability to the registrar’s date stamp appearing on its own distinct layer: however, the investigators apparently consider the probability of this event to be zero, so Monckton’s assessment is if anything generous here. Finally, B.3’s point that any observable outcome has a probability less than unity is trivially true, but it should not be taken to the extreme of suggesting, as here, that no attempt can or should be made to assess the probability that a suspect document is genuine. I conclude that Monckton’s analysis was appropriate and his conclusion correct, subject to the reliability of the investigators’ findings, on which neither his affidavit nor mine pronounces.

(1)…it is not known whether the White House document is genuine.
(2)…Though B.2 criticizes Monckton for having assigned arbitrary probabilities to the various irregularities law enforcement investigators have found in the document…
(3)…B.2 criticizes him for having assigned a 1 in 100 probability to the registrar’s date stamp appearing on its own distinct layer: however, the investigators apparently consider the probability of this event to be zero, so Monckton’s assessment is if anything generous here.

Now I’m no mathematician, but I’m not that easy to shine on either. I think Dr. Dalzell presumes a bit much.
(1) It is not “known” that “Dr. Charles Dalzell” is what, or who, he purports to be. It is not “known” that Chris Monckton isn’t in it all just for laughs.
(2) That’s a pretty definite statement regarding these investigators and their accomplishments. To what “law enforcement investigators” would this purported Dr. Charles Dalzell be referring? What are their qualifications and credentials?
(3) Again, who are these investigators, and what is the value of their technical assessment? That is, what are their qualifications to make such an assessment in the first place, and what would be the conclusive significance of their assessment? In spite of his final disclaimer, it sure seems to me that he’s giving inordinate weight to “the reliability of the investigators’ findings”.
Make no mistake, I appreciate the appearance of our purported (after all, he’s never presented his credentials to us and had their authenticity and accuracy officially verified by the issuing authority) Dr. Dalzell here to answer the criticisms that have been made, and I respect him for doing so. I just think his presumptions don’t hold up.

Charles N. Delzell: I should like to reply to various suggestions here that Monckton had erred in determining the probability that Mr Obama’s birth certificate is genuine and that, explicitly or by implication, I had erred in endorsing his method.

“Lord Christopher Monckton” is Sasha Baron Cohen. You have been pranked.

Charles N. Delzell: I should like to reply to various suggestions here that Monckton had erred in determining the probability that Mr Obama’s birth certificate is genuine and that, explicitly or by implication, I had erred in endorsing his method.

My view is that those who have taken advantage of educational opportunities, who have earned advanced degrees, and who are employed as educators have a responsibility when they speak in their field of study to do so responsibly, forthrightly and with the goal of making the public better informed. It was obvious from your affidavit that you were doing everything you could to endorse Monckton's paper without outright lying, making mostly vacuous comments about what Monckton did right. While your field of study appears not to be statistics, nor any form of applied mathematics, I find it hard to swallow the contention that you shouldn’t have known better. Mathematicians are trained in logic too.

Let me refer the reader back to the statement you made in your affidavit as to what you intended to do in the paper:

I have been asked to provide expert testimony on the questions whether an affidavit sworn by The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley on November 7, 2012, which affidavit I have read, appropriately applies a probabilistic technique in mathematics to assess the probability that the image of what purports on its fact to be the original paper long-form birth certificate of President Barack Hussein Obama is a true representation of a genuine document; whether Monckton has deployed the technique correctly and reasonably; and whether and to what extent he is justified in his conclusion to the effect that the probability that said document is genuine is vanishingly different from zero.

This is not a statement that you checked Monckton's arithmetic or whether he evaluated a formula correctly. You specifically spoke of the appropriate application of mathematical technique. Monckton is engaging in the well-known statistical misuse known as the post hoc fallacy. The essential thesis of the Monckton paper is a misapplication of probability theory.

You appear to argue that Monckton’s analysis is correct because he is analyzing suspicious items rather than random results. However, nowhere does Monckton justify, nor could he justify, that anything he assigns probabilities is suspicious. It is only suspicious because Monckton buys into the birther conspiracy theory world of junk science. So without a legitimate basis of suspicion attached to any observation, he is fully and completely applying the post hoc fallacy. That is piled upon a further fallacy of multiplying probabilities from dependent events.

After starting off with this two-fold misapplication of probability theory, Monckton goes on to pull numbers out of the air to plug in a formula to get a facially absurd event

The State of Hawaii has issued numerous statements saying that the White House birth certificate image matches their files. It has been verified in official documents, including two sent to secretaries of state (Arizona and Kansas) and informally on the State Department of Health web site. Generally in the sciences or in mathematics when one arrives at a ridiculous result, one checks ones assumptions. However, rather than critique Monckton, you praised him. I cannot say whether this is ignorance, negligence, or an intentional attempt to mislead.

You bring up the example of “African” as an example of an anomaly on Obama’s birth certificate that you think has some relevance to the authenticity of the birth certificate. Given that Barack Obama’s father is well known to be an African, it seems absurd on the surface that this expected result could legitimately be used to impeach a birth certificate containing it. To get around this, birthers make up lies about what is on a normal birth certificate. The fact that you chose the race item as your first example in your defense shows that you are a willfully ignorant investigator. My article, “The African race: the final chapter”, well known to readers here, addresses that question and shows that “African” is exactly the correct response on the form; anything else would have been suspicious! You seem to think that the probability theory is applied differently depending on whether the observer is suspicious or not. I reject that, but your suspicion about the race of Obama’s father on the birth certificate is unfounded anyway.

I note here that Dr. Delzell has dodged the criticism that Monckton simply made up numbers for just about everything in his analysis.

I was intrigued with Dr. Delzell’s example of detecting cheating. I’ve graded papers and found cheating also. The problem with this analogy is that Dr. Delzell has long experience grading papers and he has expertise in what variation he might expect between different students solving the same problem. Neither he nor Monckton has any experience whatever in mixed raster content compression algorithms used in PDF storage. They don’t have a clue what they are talking about. The second problem with the analogy of grading papers is that just because two people using the same model calculator arrive at the same correct numerical answer, equal to 9 decimal places, is no indication of cheating. Obama’s birth certificate is correct in all respects, and every birther objection has proved bogus under inspection, and I have been inspecting these things for 4 years now.

There simply is no anomaly in the Obama long-form birth certificate that lends any suspicion to the document. Crank conspiracy theorists make up anomalies based on their ignorance and their bias and assign numbers to them without rational justification. Then they try to use legitimate mathematical calculations in an attempt to turn garbage into information, and by so doing mislead others. It’s like a magician’s misdirection, or using big words to sound smart.

Let me give you an analogy you might appreciate regarding independent events. Police arrest a man suspected of murder. A number of witnesses are shown a photo of the man, the police saying: "this is the man we’ve arrested for the murder and we are confident he is the guilty one. Can you confirm that’s the one you saw?" Let’s say 8 people say yes, and let’s say the chance of a false identification is one in ten. What is the probability that they all could be wrong, since each person observed the criminal fleeing the scene of the crime independently? Is it 1 in 10^8? The observations were independent, but the answers were not. The answers were biased by way the question was asked. And in fact, such mass identifications of demonstrably innocent persons are known. In the same way the birthers make all of their judgments through the lens of their denial that Barack Obama, for whatever reason, could not have really been elected President of the United States.

Monckton, and apparently Dr. Delzell, are exchanging bias for evidence, cooking the numbers, and making fools out of themselves.

Charles N. Delzell: I should like to reply to various suggestions here that Monckton had erred in determining the probability that Mr Obama’s birth certificate is genuine and that, explicitly or by implication, I had erred in endorsing his method.

Charles N. Delzell: This contrasts with the birth certificate situation, where, according to the investigators, some features of the birth certificate were objectively wrong or irregular (e.g., the word “African” on the line for race in 1962).

Your entire house of cards collapses right there.

There is nothing “objectively wrong or irregular” about the word “African” on the line for race in 1961 (fixed the year for you).

The data item is a self reported item. In 1961 people from Africa, especially black people, called themselves African.

You cannot assign a probability to an anomaly that isn’t an anomaly, any more than you can describe the number 1 coming up in the lottery as an anomaly.

You do your profession and reputation no good what-so-ever by falling into the cesspit with Monckton and the rest of the merry band of fraudsters.

Doc, when you separate out the purported Dr. Delzell’s “mission statement” like you did there (and my apologies to the purported Dr. Delzell for my own repeated misspelling of his purported name)– how he wanted to reply to “various suggestions here that Monckton had erred in determining the probability that Mr Obama’s birth certificate is genuine”– it brings it all into focus for me. He’s kind of overlooking Chris’s basic, fundamental error, isn’t he?

I’m confident that if Dr. Delzell ran his diploma through the same hardware that the White House used to scan the President’s birth certificate, we could use Monckton’s technique to demonstrate that it was a forgery too.

The nice thing is that we can assign probablities that each of Monckton’s 13 probablities are actually correct and come up with an overall probability that Monckton’s final number is accurate. That number is gonna be a whole lot higher than 1 in 75 quadrillion (the probability he assigns to all the irregularities in Obama’s BC occuring inadvertently)

Amazing powers of summoning this blog has acquired. It seems to be able to burn the ears of just about anyone mentioned … and who has time to kill online, and the minimum ability to do so. No Obama or Arpaio appearances yet.

I appreciate that CND took the time, but he probably would have been better off leaving alone. Or at least having managed to avoid the crank tendency toward quantity over quality. Really, if only he could have run on a bit more, he almost had me. 😉 As is, I have to agree with the feedback of his students.

Both absences are understandable. Obama is busy running the country, and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane is incapable of making an appearance where there isn’t camera he can do one of his finger pointed/badge displayed poses for.

Dr. Conspiracy: I was intrigued with Dr. Delzell’s example of detecting cheating. I’ve graded papers and found cheating also. The problem with this analogy is that Dr. Delzell has long experience grading papers and he has expertise in what variation he might expect between different students solving the same problem. Neither he nor Monckton has any experience whatever in mixed raster content compression algorithms used in PDF storage. They don’t have a clue what they are talking about.

Nor do the “investigators” of the CCP, because, whether or not they did the “2200 hours” of work and the “hundreds of scanner runs” they claim, they did not meet the minimum standards of a scientific investigation. In order to call something an anomaly, one must have a set of controls, a statistically significant number of samples prepared by the same process, that do not show those effects. In this case, at a minimum, one would need a set of typewritten documents photocopied onto security paper (preferably of the same source as used by the Hawai DoH) and then scanned into a pdf. Without those controls, or at least a body of published studies on such documents in the literature, the “investigation” is worthless.

My conclusion, as a PhD in biochemsitry from a university ranked in the top 10 in that field is that there are NO anomalies in the Obama birth document. Zero. None. It looks EXACTLY like a 1960 birth certificate processed as described should look.

My conclusion is that since there are no established anomalies, the odds that the document is legitimate are well above 95% (probably well above 99%). That is a confidence level sufficient to grant marketing approval for a drug that could kill or cure millions of people. It is, thus, more than sufficient to support the result of a mere political contest.

It was not appropriate for the pseudonymous “Dr Conspiracy” (hereinafter “C”) to attack Professor Delzell for “doing everything he could to endorse [my] affidavit without outright lying”, and for having been guilty of “ignorance, negligence, or a deliberate attempt to mislead”. The Professor’s courteous and detailed response to those of the criticisms on this site that appeared to constitute attempts at mathematical argument deserved better than mere loutish, libelous yah-boo of this kind in response.

Nor was it appropriate to question Professor Dalzell’s qualifications on the basis that his field is pure rather than applied mathematics, for probability theory is as applicable to pure as to applied math.

C suggests that I had engaged in “the well-known statistical misuse known as the post hoc fallacy”. The post hoc ergo propter hoc (literally, “after, therefore because” fallacy is a special instance of the logical fallacy known as the argumentum ad causam falsam, the fallacy of argument from false cause. I am at a loss to see how this fallacy has any relevance to my probabilistic technique designed to determine the probability that the various errors identified by the law-enforcement investigators might all have occurred by inadvertence in the same document. This fallacy – one of a dozen first codified by Aristotle in his Refutations of the Sophists some 2350 years ago – seems entirely off the point.

C objects to Dr Delzell’s affidavit on the basis that he had not checked my arithmetic or “evaluated a formula correctly”. Yet C offers no evidence for any such error on my part, and Dr Delzell explicitly endorsed both my method and my conclusion.

C goes on to say: “Nowhere does Monckton justify, nor could he justify, that anything [to which] he assigns probabilities is suspicious.” As my affidavit states, I was asked to determine the probability that the White House document is genuine on the basis of the findings of an investigation by experienced law enforcement detectives appointed by an experienced Sheriff. To the extent that those findings are reliable, my conclusion that the document is not at all likely to be authentic necessarily follows, mathematically speaking.
I did not warrant that the Sheriff’s findings are reliable (that is a matter for forensic document examiners), but I did consult his investigators, who explained their methods and reasoning to me. I found most of their conclusions justifiable. I also consulted various specialists, who confirmed several aspects of what the investigators had told me. And I made some enquiries of my own. For instance, I applied an accurate grid overlay to a specimen birth certificate created by specialists on a mechanical typewriter and to the White House document to confirm independently the anomalies in line-spacing and letter-spacing that the investigators had reported. Bearing in mind these enquiries that I made, C’s suggestions that I merely “buy into the birther conspiracy theory world of junk science” and that my conclusion is “ridiculous” are, again, mere yah-boo.

It is worth recalling the context within which Professor Delzell and I were asked to write our affidavits. In the disciplined forum of the courts, both sides are fairly heard and each side has the opportunity to cross-examine the other. In this forum, what C calls “buying into birther conspiracy” has no place. The courts deal in facts, not politics. If I am asked to testify in person, I have to be able to justify what I say in my affidavit, and what I say must be capable of withstanding cross-examination. No such cross-examination would succeed merely by childish shouts of “birther, birther!” Silly epithets of that kind do not reflect credit upon those who resort to them.

Next, C asserts that I have perpetrated “a further fallacy of multiplying probabilities from dependent events”. Again, however, he fails to provide even one instance of any mutual dependence between any two events to which I had assigned independent probabilities. In the absence of any specific instances, his point is again little better than mere yah-boo.

C also considers that I have “pulled numbers out of the air”. However, I made reasonable efforts to assign fair probabilities to each of the events identified by the law-enforcement investigators as irregularities. For instance, errors that might have arisen as a result of carelessness by record clerks were given a probability of 1 in 25, which is an official US Federal Government estimate of the standard bureaucratic error rate.

Furthermore, I carried out a separate probability calculation on the basis that each of the irregularities identified by the investigators might have occurred by inadvertence as much as half the time, though none of them would be expected to occur anything like that often. Even on this generous basis, the probability that the White House document is authentic is low. Professor Delzell, rather than “dodging” the appropriateness of my probability estimates, noted in his affidavit that I had provided an alternative calculation on the basis of probabilities that no reasonable observer would conclude were ungenerous to the null hypothesis that the White House document is genuine.

C says: “The State of Hawaii has issued numerous statements saying that the White House birth certificate image matches their files. It has been verified in official documents, including two sent to secretaries of state (Arizona and Kansas) and informally on the State Department of Health website.” Under the “full faith and credit” Article in the U.S. Constitution, it is normally appropriate to accept the word of a State as to the authenticity of one of its official documents. However, when there is sufficient evidence that a document is forged, a State may not hide behind the “full faith and credit” Article, which is not to be taken as providing a license for States to perpetrate forgery and fraud. In these circumstances the courts may legitimately question Hawaii’s word – but they may only do so where the evidence before them is sufficiently compelling.

C and several others who have commented have queried whether Professor Delzell’s mention of the use of the term “African” as a racial identifier in 1961 provided a suitable example of an apparent irregularity in the White House document. C says that, “given that Barack Obama’s father is well known to be an African, it seems absurd on the surface that this expected result could legitimately be used to impeach a birth certificate containing it”. The investigators traced and interviewed the chief registrar of births from 1961 and discovered that the correct term for someone of Mr Obama’s father’s race was either “Negro” or “Other non-white”. The term “African” was not a recognized racial descriptor at that time, so, even if birth details using that term had been supplied by or on behalf of the parents the registrar would not normally have used the term “African”, which, indeed, was subsequently specifically prohibited as a racial descriptor. The investigators also inspected several other relevant Hawaiian birth certificates to verify that the terms “Negro” or “Other non-white” were normally used at that time. Bearing in mind all of this information, I have estimated that the term “African” might have been inadvertently used on one birth certificate in 25. However, as my affidavit states, anyone wishing to substitute a probability that is considered more suitable is free to do so.

C rightly questions my expertise in the understanding of mixed raster content compression algorithms for optimizing image files. I have no such expertise. However, I had the benefit of consulting the investigators and also some independent experts who do have relevant expertise, and it is their opinion – after prolonged enquiry – that no data file compiled by any automated optimization algorithm would have generated the particular pattern of “layers” evident in the White House document. The investigators examined 600 separate algorithms for each of the two standard computer platforms – Windows and Mac – and none generated the layering characteristics observable in the White House document. Nevertheless, my probability assessment allowed for the possibility that ten such programs exist. Generously, I did not take account of the fact that these ten programs are probably a great deal less widely used than the 600 best-known programs. Again, my approach was proportionate and reasonable and took due note of the evidence actually before me: but, again, anyone is free to substitute a probability value other than that which I adopted.

C says, “There simply is no anomaly in the Obama long-form birth certificate that lends any suspicion to the document.” He also says, “Obama’s birth certificate is correct in all respects, and every birther objection has proved bogus under inspection.” C is entitled to his opinion, but that is not the professional opinion of the investigators to whose analysis I was asked to apply my probabilistic analysis. I took reasonable steps to satisfy myself, by discussions with the investigators, that they were serious and competent, and that they genuinely intended to do a fair and diligent job. It is not clear to me that C has ever spoken to any of the investigators, or to the Sheriff who had assigned the case to them as a result of a complaint from members of the public. The investigators’ conclusion, shared by the Sheriff who appointed them, is that the White House document is unquestionably forged. My probabilistic analysis confirms that they are right.

C attempts – in my submission unsuccessfully – to compare my probabilistic approach with police showing a photograph of a murder suspect to various witnesses and asking them leading questions about whether the suspect was the man they saw. The analogy breaks down before it gets off the ground. I was approached not by the investigators but by attorneys in a court case. They asked me to provide a probabilistic assessment of the investigators’ various conclusions. I did what I was asked to do. I was not asked to speculate on whether Mr Obama was born in Hawaii or anywhere else and, in the absence of any evidence, I decline to do so. I was not asked to speculate on whether Mr Obama was aware that the White House document that he publicly endorsed is a forgery, though it is noteworthy that for 17 years the biographical note that he personally wrote for his literary agents and revised each year describes him as having been born in Kenya, a circumstance which only changed in the year in which he ran for the presidency. I was asked to carry out a probabilistic assessment, and that – and no more than that – is what I did.

It may be that in due course these affidavits will be presented at a court hearing and we shall be asked to attend the hearing and submit ourselves to cross-examination. At that point, those cross-examining us will need to marshal both mathematical and evidential arguments considerably stronger than those advanced by C and those who support him. The value of the mathematical approach is that it removes the authenticity discussion from the political arena and provides a rigorous framework within which the probability of authenticity can be impartially assessed. Mere declarations of faith in the authenticity of the White House document will not suffice to convince the courts.

In my submission, and based on my probability calculations, the evidence already gathered by the Sheriff’s law enforcement investigators and made public by them is sufficient to justify any Federal District Court in issuing an order that Hawaii must grant the investigators access to the original birth records for Mr Obama for forensic examination to settle this vexed question once and for all. It is arguable that a president with nothing to hide would not have issued – as his first executive order on his first full day as President – a sealing of all of his own past records, and that he would now be anxious to permit Hawaii to show the original documentation to the Sheriff’s investigators. The fraud investigator’s rule: he who hides stuff may have stuff to hide.

I end with two judicial obiter dicta on this question, both from the Alabama Supreme Court. The new Chief Justice has recently said that he has seen much evidence that Mr Obama’s birth certificate is false and little evidence that it is genuine. And a judge of that court, in an opinion given earlier this year, said that evidence submitted by a petitioner, if presented in the appropriate forum and supported by affidavits, “would raise serious questions about the authenticity of both the ‘short-form’ and the ‘long-form’ the birth certificates of President Barack Hussein Obama that have been made public”. Those opinions would surely be shared by any impartial court confronted with the evidence that I evaluated.

Monckton of Brenchley: C is entitled to his opinion, but that is not the professional opinion of the investigators to whose analysis I was asked to apply my probabilistic analysis. I took reasonable steps to satisfy myself, by discussions with the investigators, that they were serious and competent, and that they genuinely intended to do a fair and diligent job.

The “lead investigator” is a car salesman. He claims to have once worked as a police officer in New Jersey. This has never been confirmed, nor what cases he worked on there, nor whether he ever testified in court and with what outcomes. The Sheriff is a member of the political party that opposes the President, and he was involved in a dispute with the US Justice Department at the time of the “investigation”. None of the outside “investigators” have ever testified as forensic document experts in any case in any court in the US. So, their opinions hold little weight.

Monckton of Brenchley: for 17 years the biographical note that he personally wrote for his literary agents and revised each year

No, he did NOT write it. A flunky at the agency wrote it.

Monckton of Brenchley: The investigators examined 600 separate algorithms for each of the two standard computer platforms – Windows and Mac – and none generated the layering characteristics observable in the White House document.

But the starting material in an experiment is the key variable. None of their attempts started with a typewritten form document, photocopied onto security paper, then scanned (at least not according to their own statements). So, whether they examined 6, 600, 60,000 or 6,000,000, their conclusons are invalid. To give an analogy from my own field, if I were to attempt to isolate human liver alcohol dehydrogenase and started with mouse brains or cow intestines, I would fail, no matter how many times I tried. That failure would say nothing of any scientific interest.

Monckton of Brenchley: . It is arguable that a president with nothing to hide would not have issued – as his first executive order on his first full day as President – a sealing of all of his own past records,

Then Obama has nothing to hide, having issued no such order. As you well know.

Simply making up numbers and multiplying them together shows no mathematical skills. I’m sorry your “Lordship”, Benoit Mandelbrot, you are not.

Monckton of Brenchley In my submission, and based on my probability calculations, the evidence already gathered by the Sheriff’s law enforcement investigators and made public by them is sufficient to justify any Federal District Court in issuing an order that Hawaii must grant the investigators access to the original birth records for Mr Obama for forensic examination to settle this vexed question once and for all.

This is altogether a ridiculous statement. The proper authorities with access to the original records have authenticated the information contained on Mr Obama’s BC; henceforth the matter is closed.

You, for example, presumably rely on a British passport every time you cross national borders to establish your identity. For all I know, you might well be using a forgery, and your real identity might be that of Isidore Beaujolet, well-known pedophile wanted by the French police. You are not challenged and detained because the proper issuing authorities have authenticated your passport, hence the matter rests.

Monckton of Brenchley: It was not appropriate for the pseudonymous “Dr Conspiracy” (hereinafter “C”) to attack Professor Delzell for “doing everything he could to endorse [my] affidavit without outright lying”, and for having been guilty of “ignorance, negligence, or a deliberate attempt to mislead”.

Monckton of Brenchley: The investigators examined 600 separate algorithms for each of the two standard computer platforms – Windows and Mac – and none generated the layering characteristics observable in the White House document.

Professor Ricardo de Queiroz one of the developers of the Mixed Raster Content model reviewed the whitehouse pdf and stated,

“In summary I can only say I see much stronger signs of common MRC algorithmic processing of the image rather than some intentional manipulation.”

Every anomaly seen by the Sheriff’s computer experts can be explained by the MRC model.

Monckton of Brenchley: The term “African” was not a recognized racial descriptor at that time, so, even if birth details using that term had been supplied by or on behalf of the parents the registrar would not normally have used the term “African”, which, indeed, was subsequently specifically prohibited as a racial descriptor.

The 1961 Vital Statistics Instruction Manual published by the Vital Statistics Division of US Department of Health, Education and Welfare states in the section “Determining the race of the parent”,

“If the racial entry is “Yellow,” “Oriental,” or “Mongolian,” consult supervisor.” Clearly, the US Government had examples of non-standard entries in the “Race of Parent” field on birth certificates and had developed instructions for dealing with them.

You probably didn’t understand my comment because you don’t know that there is a separate statistical fallacy called “post hoc” that is separate from the logical fallacy of the same name. To avoid confusion I provided a hyperlink for more information, which you might have read to your advantage.

Monckton of Brenchley: C suggests that I had engaged in “the well-known statistical misuse known as the post hoc fallacy”. The post hoc ergo propter hoc (literally, “after, therefore because” fallacy is a special instance of the logical fallacy known as the argumentum ad causam falsam, the fallacy of argument from false cause. I am at a loss to see how this fallacy has any relevance to my probabilistic technique designed to determine the probability that the various errors identified by the law-enforcement investigators might all have occurred by inadvertence in the same document. This fallacy – one of a dozen first codified by Aristotle in his Refutations of the Sophists some 2350 years ago – seems entirely off the point

Monckton of Brenchley: It is arguable that a president with nothing to hide would not have issued – as his first executive order on his first full day as President – a sealing of all of his own past records

Here is an analysis of his first executive order that you falsely claim sealed his records.

I will excuse your ignorance since you are not trained in mathematics. The application of probability to the real world, and how one may use it to make decisions is separate from the pure mathematical theory of probability. I touched on this in my article about using Bayes Theorem to compute the likelihood that Obama was born in Kenya given the information of his literary agent wrote that he was born there. Applied mathematicians have differing views on how the theorem is properly applied, whereas there is no question that the theorem is correct in the pure mathematical sense.

More importantly, Dr. Delzell’s list of qualifications and papers do not touch on the field of probability and statistics at all.

Monckton of Brenchley: Nor was it appropriate to question Professor Dalzell’s qualifications on the basis that his field is pure rather than applied mathematics, for probability theory is as applicable to pure as to applied math.

It is worth recalling the context within which Professor Delzell and I were asked to write our affidavits. In the disciplined forum of the courts, both sides are fairly heard and each side has the opportunity to cross-examine the other

I don’t know who asked you to write these affidavits, but whoever it was is unfamiliar with the US legal system. In the United States, the courts have adopted what is called the “Daubert Standard” to keep junk science out of the court room. Neither you, nor any so-called birther expert could ever survive such a test and be allowed to testify. It is unnecessary to speculate how such testimony would be met under cross-examination because such testimony would not be allowed in the first place. Your affidavit is not admissible in court.

You’re not a qualified expert in mathematics, nor are Arpaio’s investigators experts in document analysis. Your appeal to unnamed experts is of course not worth the electrons used to write them and not admissible in court either. A number of experts who do routinely testify in court about electronic documents have found no problems with Obama’s certificate. It’s simple, crank birthers with no qualifications find their biases reflected in the birth certificate; qualified experts find no problems.

Your affidavit and Delzell’s support of it have no legal significance, and so I can only assume that they were elicited for publicity purposes. Birthers do that sort of thing, so far having 165 lawsuits tossed out of court.

You have been met with a degree of derision here, and you complain that the criticism isn’t substantive. You don’t understand. You haven’t met the minimum bar of expertise for your claims to deserve substantive scrutiny.

Let me make one other comment. You justify your probability of bureaucratic error based on a federal average. There are two problems. First, there are no errors on Obama’s birth certificate. Every data item is correct and exactly as it should be (except perhaps for the age of Obama Sr. and that’s not due to clerical error but to the fact that he gave different ages on various documents). Second, birth certificates are legal documents rather like drivers licenses. After the birth certificate was transcribed it was verified by Ann Obama who signed it, and it was checked by an experienced registrar. A federal average error rate is not applicable to vital records (I had 30 years in this field and can speak with some authority here).

Monckton of Brenchley: The courts deal in facts, not politics. If I am asked to testify in person, I have to be able to justify what I say in my affidavit, and what I say must be capable of withstanding cross-examination. No such cross-examination would succeed merely by childish shouts of “birther, birther!” Silly epithets of that kind do not reflect credit upon those who resort to them.

It is worth recalling the context within which Professor Delzell and I were asked to write our affidavits. In the disciplined forum of the courts, both sides are fairly heard and each side has the opportunity to cross-examine the other

I got hung up there, too … what the hades is Monckton blathering about? There was no presentation at WND that I recall that couched his laffidavit into any specific legal context. He wrote it, as do all the nutters on the WND bandwagon, to be fired off at random into any and all WND-sanctioned birfer courtroom melodramas.

And Monckton shows up within hours of CND? Thick as thieves these birfers be.

The pseudonymous “Scientist” says the sheriff’s investigators are not qualified. He is entitled to his opinion. Whether he knows it or not, their work has been reviewed by at least one registered forensic document examiner. Whether or not the sheriff was in a dispute with the US Justice Department formed no part of my enquiries: the evidence stands or falls not on the imagined political situation of the sheriff but on its intrinsic merits. A court would have no time for unsupported allegations of that kind about the sheriff’s motives.

My information is that Mr Obama, like all writers, wrote and revised his own biography for his literary agents. If “Scientist” knows which “flunkey” (his word) at the agency wrote it, perhaps he will let me know.

“Scientist’s” statement that the investigators did not start with a typewritten form document that was photocopied and then scanned may or may not be true, but it does not in itself invalidate their conclusion that the layering pattern evident in the White House document is inconsistent with the output of any known optimization software. In any event, the chain of custody of the certified copies does not refer to their being scanned at any point, and it is clear to the investigators that the image on the White House website is not the result of a scan.

“Scientist” sneers at me for “making up numbers and multiplying them together”. That is not an adequate or fair representation of the admittedly simple technique I used.

“Scientist” goes on to say, “Benoit Mandelbrot you are not.” An interesting analogy: for the connected set of Mandelbrot fractals – aptly described as the most complex object in mathematics – is obtained by choosing numbers in an appropriate range and then repeatedly multiplying them. In that sense, then, Benoit Mandelbrot I am.

The pseudonymous “Lupin”, who appears not to have read what I had written before attempting to attack it, says the authorities in Hawaii have certified the White House document as genuine and that is that. I explicitly dealt with that point in my earlier reply, pointing out that the “full faith and credit” Article in the U.S. Constitution is not to be construed as giving a license to any State to perpetrate or participate in forgery or fraud, and that that Article offers no protection to a State where evidence of forgery is sufficiently compelling to cast legitimate doubt upon that State’s certification of the forgery as genuine.

Mischa Maransky makes repeated mention of a hard-Left interviewer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation who obtained an interview with me under false pretenses and then said I was Sasha Baron Cohen (whoever that may be). On any view, that is not a serious or adult argument against my affidavit.

The pseudonymous “Dr Conspiracy” imprudently says I had not understood part of one of his earlier comments because “you don’t know that there is a separate statistical fallacy called ‘post hoc’ that is separate from the logical fallacy of the same name. To avoid confusion I provided a hyperlink for more information, which you might have read to your advantage.” It was unwise of “Dr Conspiracy” to stray so far from such expertise as he may have. The hyperlink he provided was to an entry about misuse of statistics in Wikipedia, the “encyclopedia” that any idiot can edit and only an idiot would credit. However, even CreepyMedia does not attempt to maintain, as “Dr Conspiracy” does, that the post facto fallacy (mentioned in that article) is the same thing as the post hoc fallacy (which is rightly not mentioned at all in that article). Furthermore, four previous attempts by commenters on this thread to assert that I was guilty of the post facto fallacy were meticulously rebutted in careful detail by Professor Delzell, so “Dr Conspiracy’s” failure even to mention that the Professor had already issued those rebuttals before “Dr C” falsely reasserts that I am guilty of the post facto fallacy (which he misidentifies as the post hoc fallacy) fails to impress, intellectually speaking. Whatever “Dr C” says, there is no post hoc fallacy in statistics that is separate from the post hoc fallacy first codified by Aristotle: and the post hoc fallacy is as entirely irrelevant to this debate as the post facto fallacy is.

One understands that these issues arouse great passions on both sides of the political divide: but less passion and more rigor would be of benefit if the work of the sheriff and his investigators is to be seriously questioned. In particular, direct falsehoods (such as “Scientist’s” statement that Mr Obama’s first executive order was not an order to seal his Presidential records, when it was) are to be avoided. Also, the descent to mere childish insult that seems to be a deplorable feature of too many comments here is unimpressive. Those who, like Ms Maransky, have no serious intellectual contribution to make in this discussion should consider going away and doing something else.

misha marinsky: Monckton of Brenchley: It is worth recalling the context

My kneejerk reaction to anyone writing that is “No, no it really isn’t,” but this time, it is worth recalling: “For posting at WND.” Which flushes the rest down the commode. Which being with out substance, goes down easy! How do they ramble on at such length and manage to avoid saying anything?

And exactly who is this “forensic document examiner” and who “registered” them? An unsourced assertion is worthless.

Monckton of Brenchley: The pseudonymous “Scientist” says the sheriff’s investigators are not qualified. He is entitled to his opinion. Whether he knows it or not, their work has been reviewed by at least one registered forensic document examiner.

(1)Nor was it appropriate to question Professor Dalzell’s qualifications on the basis that his field is pure rather than applied mathematics, for probability theory is as applicable to pure as to applied math.

(2)C’s suggestions that I merely “buy into the birther conspiracy theory world of junk science” and that my conclusion is “ridiculous” are, again, mere yah-boo.

(3)It is worth recalling the context within which Professor Delzell and I were asked to write our affidavits. In the disciplined forum of the courts, both sides are fairly heard and each side has the opportunity to cross-examine the other.

(4)C says: “The State of Hawaii has issued numerous statements saying that the White House birth certificate image matches their files. It has been verified in official documents, including two sent to secretaries of state (Arizona and Kansas) and informally on the State Department of Health website.” Under the “full faith and credit” Article in the U.S. Constitution, it is normally appropriate to accept the word of a State as to the authenticity of one of its official documents. However, when there is sufficient evidence that a document is forged, a State may not hide behind the “full faith and credit” Article, which is not to be taken as providing a license for States to perpetrate forgery and fraud. In these circumstances the courts may legitimately question Hawaii’s word – but they may only do so where the evidence before them is sufficiently compelling.

(5)C is entitled to his opinion, but that is not the professional opinion of the investigators to whose analysis I was asked to apply my probabilistic analysis. I took reasonable steps to satisfy myself, by discussions with the investigators, that they were serious and competent, and that they genuinely intended to do a fair and diligent job.

(6)I was not asked to speculate on whether Mr Obama was aware that the White House document that he publicly endorsed is a forgery, though it is noteworthy that for 17 years the biographical note that he personally wrote for his literary agents and revised each year describes him as having been born in Kenya, a circumstance which only changed in the year in which he ran for the presidency.

(7)It may be that in due course these affidavits will be presented at a court hearing and we shall be asked to attend the hearing and submit ourselves to cross-examination. At that point, those cross-examining us will need to marshal both mathematical and evidential arguments considerably stronger than those advanced by C and those who support him.

(8)In my submission, and based on my probability calculations, the evidence already gathered by the Sheriff’s law enforcement investigators and made public by them is sufficient to justify any Federal District Court in issuing an order that Hawaii must grant the investigators access to the original birth records for Mr Obama for forensic examination to settle this vexed question once and for all. It is arguable that a president with nothing to hide would not have issued – as his first executive order on his first full day as President – a sealing of all of his own past records, and that he would now be anxious to permit Hawaii to show the original documentation to the Sheriff’s investigators. The fraud investigator’s rule: he who hides stuff may have stuff to hide.

(9)I end with two judicial obiter dicta on this question, both from the Alabama Supreme Court. The new Chief Justice has recently said that he has seen much evidence that Mr Obama’s birth certificate is false and little evidence that it is genuine. And a judge of that court, in an opinion given earlier this year, said that evidence submitted by a petitioner, if presented in the appropriate forum and supported by affidavits, “would raise serious questions about the authenticity of both the ‘short-form’ and the ‘long-form’ the birth certificates of President Barack Hussein Obama that have been made public”. Those opinions would surely be shared by any impartial court confronted with the evidence that I evaluated.

(1)Hey Monc–or should I call you Ben?– are you going to apologize to Dr. Delzell for getting his name wrong? I did.
(2)You kind of proved his point with all this yah-boo here, riddled as it is with birther conspiracy theory and junk science!
(3)What, exactly, is that context?
(4)To what “sufficent evidence” would you be referring? I’ll just remind you of what Judge Jeff Masin said in New Jersey when Mario Apuzzo Arpaio’ed him:
“We’re off the far end here in terms of legal evidence in a legal proceeding, not a press conference, not a political rally, in a legal proceeding.” You might want to check on how Judge Michael Malihi viewed this nonsense, too.
(5)To what investigators would you be referring? Did your determination “that they were serious and competent” include determining that they had any applicable qualifications, experience or credentials? Were you asking Zullo his professional opinion about, say, a used Pontiac?
(6)You refer to how “for 17 years the biographical note that he (President Obama) personally wrote for his literary agents and revised each year describes him as having been born in Kenya”– upon what do you base your claim that President Obama “personally wrote” this biographical note?
(7)I’d love to see how that goes. I’d pay to see that. You’ve got this thing about affidavits, don’t you?http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2012/11/15/christopher-monckton-files-a-questionable-affidavi/
Are you going to present this one in an actual useable form, or are you going to pull a Ron McRae on us?
(8)Remember what I said about “this yah-boo here”? You outdid yourself with this passage. You say ” the evidence already gathered by the Sheriff’s law enforcement investigators and made public by them is sufficient”– that’s just a big wad of birther conspiracy and junk science; but when you say ” It is arguable that a president with nothing to hide would not have issued – as his first executive order on his first full day as President – a sealing of all of his own past records, and that he would now be anxious to permit Hawaii to show the original documentation to the Sheriff’s investigators,” well that’s just downright low and deceitful. I notice you didn’t come right out and say that President Obama did issue such an Executive Order, which would have been an outright lie. Tsk, tsk, Chris.
(9)In what judicial ruling would we find this “obiter dictum” from Chief Justice Moore? Regarding Justice Parker, that “if” he raises would be an insurmountable obstacle, because nothing Mr. McInnish had would survive presentation, supported by affidavits, in an appropriate forum.
In short, Chris, you’ve just presented another big steaming pile of yah-boo.

Dr. Conspiracy:
You probably didn’t understand my comment because you don’t know that there is a separate statistical fallacy called “post hoc” that is separate from the logical fallacy of the same name. To avoid confusion I provided a hyperlink for more information, which you might have read to your advantage.

This is as good an example as any as to why Monckton is a crank and not a credible reporter of reality.

If Monckton had bothered to actually read the executive order, he would have found that it increased access to Presidential records, which were were more restricted under George W. Bush, and second that it only applies to “presidential records” (which are those documents developed by administration) and not “all his own past records.”

Readers of WorldNetDaily or the various birther blogs believe such things because they want to believe them, not because they have tested the ideas and found them true.

Those of us who have approached birtherism with critical thinking know that it is all a pack of lies, like this one Monckton repeats.

If I had been caught saying repeating a lie like that (and the many others Monckton promotes) I would be embarrassed and ashamed. Birthers never react that way.

Monckton of Brenchley: Mischa Maransky makes repeated mention of a hard-Left interviewer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation who obtained an interview with me under false pretenses and then said I was Sasha Baron Cohen (whoever that may be).

I admire your ability to stay in character, no matter what the venue.

Monckton of Brenchley: Those who, like Ms Maransky, have no serious intellectual contribution to make in this discussion should consider going away and doing something else.

Wonderful! You feign a lack of knowledge that “Misha” is Russian for Michael, and then add to the illusion by pretending you think I am a ‘she.’ And then you misspell ‘Marinsky.’

I can’t tell you how happy I am that a Borscht Belt tummler and accordion player, has ended up having an in-depth exchange with a film actor.

I’m going to take a screen shot, and use it if I ever write an auto-biography.

Monckton of Brenchley: Whether or not the sheriff was in a dispute with the US Justice Department formed no part of my enquiries: the evidence stands or falls not on the imagined political situation of the sheriff but on its intrinsic merits. A court would have no time for unsupported allegations of that kind about the sheriff’s motives.

Really? Cross examination in court routinely delves into the motives and interests that witnesses might have to lie or shade the truth. It is called “witness impeachment” Here is a primer for you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witness_impeachment

Monckton of Brenchley: My information is that Mr Obama, like all writers, wrote and revised his own biography for his literary agents. If “Scientist” knows which “flunkey” (his word) at the agency wrote it, perhaps he will let me know.

“Obama’s former literary agency misidentified his birthplace as Kenya while trying to promote the then-Harvard Law grad as an author in 1991.

According to a promotional booklet produced by the agency, Acton & Dystel, to showcase its roster of writers, Obama was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”

Miriam Goderich edited the text of the bio; she is now a partner at the Dystel & Goderich agency, which lists Obama as one of its current clients.

“This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me–an agency assistant at the time,” Goderich wrote in an emailed statement to Yahoo News. “There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more.”

I used the word “flunky” as she was an office assistant in 1991, though she is a partner today.

Your “information” is uninformed, Milord.

Monckton of Brenchley: “Scientist’s” statement that the investigators did not start with a typewritten form document that was photocopied and then scanned may or may not be true, but it does not in itself invalidate their conclusion that the layering pattern evident in the White House document is inconsistent with the output of any known optimization software

The investigators lack the expertsie to make such a conclusion. They have no peer-reviewed publication in image processing, do not use recognized methods, do not include appropriate controls and would not be qualified as expert witnesses in any court proceeding. Those who have such expertise, like Professor Ricardo de Queiroz of the University of Brazilia http://image.unb.br/queiroz/ say otherwise.

Your “investigators” lack even the pretense of scientific validity, which requires a real effort to replicate the details of the original work before even suggesting let alone proclaiming fraud.

Monckton of Brenchley: “Scientist” sneers at me for “making up numbers and multiplying them together”. That is not an adequate or fair representation of the admittedly simple technique I used.

If the input data from the non-expert “experts”, car salesmen, etc. is invalid, the math used is irrelevant. Experimental flaws cannot be cured by correct application of formulae.

Aside from the fact that “Presidential Records” refers to records generated during the time in office, not 50 year old personal records, there is nothing in the order that “seals” anything. It deals with situations where executive privilege has been invoked. But, executive privilege has not ben invoked by Mr Obama. In fact, his personal records are governed by the same laws that govern yours and mine,

The fact that you lie about this is interesting since it is irrelvant to your central argument. Consider your testimony impeached, Milord…

I can’t tell you how happy I am that a Borscht Belt tummler and accordion player, has ended up having an in-depth exchange with a film actor.

Hey, did you hear the one about the accordionist and the banjo player who got a New Year’s Eve gig?
I hope you weren’t near any hot liquids when Chris introduced the novel concept of “serious intellectual contribution” into this discussion. What a kidder!

In particular, direct falsehoods (such as “Scientist’s” statement that Mr Obama’s first executive order was not an order to seal his Presidential records, when it was) are to be avoided. Also, the descent to mere childish insult that seems to be a deplorable feature of too many comments here is unimpressive. Those who, like Ms Maransky, have no serious intellectual contribution to make in this discussion should consider going away and doing something else.

I suppose I should be flattered to run the Obot blog of record where these folks feel they have to come to validate themselves, but I was really hoping it would all just dry up and blow away, now that the election is over.

JPotter: Wow, Apuzzo and Monckton on separate stages on the same day! It’s like a singularity of stupid.

Dr. Conspiracy: I suppose I should be flattered to run the Obot blog of record where these folks feel they have to come to validate themselves, but I was really hoping it would all just dry up and blow away, now that the election is over.

I know how you feel. I have to repair a toilet today. Same difference!

Gee, what is the probability that the affidavit of his nibs is worthless given that either (a) he is unable to comprehend the language in Obama’s first executive order, and/or (b) he continues to misrepresent its content?

I think it likely that he got suckered by the birther web sites that present their “analysis” as expert-validated, mainstream and scientific. Monckton certainly presents things that way, and passes on a number of outright lies, which had they been true would have meant something, but as lies mean nothing.

In mathematics 2+2 = 4, but if the first number is really 3 and the second number 16, the answer is wrong too.

Rather than leave the phrase “outright lie” general, let me point out some outright lies:”

The alleged father’s race is described as “African” some 28 years before the term “African” or “African American” first came into general usage. In 1961, written rules forbade the use of such generalized racial descriptors, the term “African” being specifically barred.

In fact the National Center for Health Statistics data entry instructions for 1961 specifically mention “AA” and “Afro-American” as acceptable, as well as other generalized racial descriptors.

Monckton lies again saying:

Ms Verna K. Lee, the registrar a simulacrum of whose signature appears on the
White House document, drew the investigators’ attention to the list of codings that were used for statistical returns to the Federal Government: 1 White; 2 Negro; 3 Indian (includes Aleuts and Eskimos); 4 Chinese; 5 Japanese; 6 Hawaiian (includes part Hawaiian) ; 7 Other Nonwhite; Unknown or not stated (Race of parents only).

That’s three lies. First, Verna K. Lee has never been reported as saying this. Those codes came from a birther blog that has been caught multiple times falsifying documents. Second, the Federal Coding manual for 1961 is available on the Internet, and those code values are wrong for 1961, and third the 1961 Federal report of Statistics from Hawaii show separate tabulations for Eskimo and Aleut, meaning they could have not shared the same code. See:

The birth date of Mr Obama’s alleged father is two years out. It not impossible that the child’s mother did not know his father’s date of birth, or that the date was incorrectly entered.

First you don’t really know how old Obama Sr. was. On 16 different official documents obtained by FOIA, we see Obama Sr. born variously in 1934 (14 times) and 1936 (6 times). If Obama Sr. couldn’t keep his age straight, how would Ann Obama know? Details at:

Indeed, a certificate number appears
openly on Mr Obama’s long form birth certificate. However, the number is out of sequence, and it is possible that the original blacking out of the number on the short form certificate was an attempt to conceal this irregularity.

We know now from certificates that have been published that none of them appear in strict numerical sequence of registration. Rather they appear to be alphabetized by last name within a monthly batch. See:

Sure, but why bother? It’s words on a website, a response is in no way obligated. I know, I know, we see the same pattern play out endlessly online and off; but either the original statement stands on its own it doesn’t. If it’s flawed, digging in deeper won’t make it better.

“Dave B” says that “Dr Conspiracy” schooling me on my Latin must have hurt. It must indeed have hurt “Dr Conspiracy”, who a) got his “post hoc” and his “post facto” mixed up; b) cited as authority for “post hoc” an article that did not mention it; c) probably meant “post facto”, which the article he cited did mention; d) failed to note that Dr Delzell had already debunked, in detail, four allegations to the effect that I had perpetrated the post facto fallacy, or the p=1 fallacy, by allegedly having assigned a probability below unity to an event that had already occurred.

“Scientist”, however, was correct to point out that my interpretation of Mr Obama’s first executive order was erroneous. I apologize. I also apologize for assuming that Mr Marinsky was Ms Maransky, and for an inadvertent misspelling of Delzell as “Dalzell”.

Though the “flunkey” (not my word) at Mr Obama’s literary agency says Mr Obama did not supply any information to the effect that he was born in Kenya, she does not say who did supply that information: merely that she “edited” the information and failed to fact-check it properly. Nor does she explain why he failed to spot this obvious error – if error it was – for 17 successive years, correcting it only in the year in which he wished to run for the Presidency. Literary agencies usually invite authors to write their own biographies, and send them annual reminders to verify that the information in their biographies is correct.

I have looked at Professor de Queiroz’ findings, the most striking of which is to the effect that the image on the White House website has been heavily processed, contrary to the chain-of-custody statements that official sources have issued, which allow for no such processing.

However, I decline to be drawn into a discussion of the merits or otherwise of the investigators’ findings. I was asked to apply probability theory to those findings, and I did so. To the extent that the findings are reliable, my conclusion follows, mathematically speaking, and I think that is now accepted by all parties here, though they may not accept the reliability of the findings themselves.

To the extent that some of the findings are not thought reliable, as I have explained, it is possible to substitute other probability values for those I have listed in my affidavit. However, what is striking about the White House document is the sheer quantity and variety of apparent irregularities. To strike down my conclusion, it would be necessary to demonstrate that the great majority of the numerous irregularities identified by the law-enforcement investigators occurred by inadvertence, or are not irregularities at all.

Professor de Queiroz, for instance, concerned himself solely with the image-processing irregularities, and confirmed the investigators’ key finding that the image had indeed been heavily processed, though he thought the processing was innocent and was seemingly unaware of the chain-of-custody statements that did not mention any processing as having taken place. Nor was he able to provide a convincing explanation of why or how automated processing software would have been capable of singling out the registrar’s date-stamp and separately the registrar’s signature-stamp and isolating each on its own exclusive data-layer. Accordingly, I was inclined to accept the investigators’ conclusions on these points: but anyone disagreeing with my decision may of course assign his own probability values to these events. Even if all of the image-processing irregularities are excluded, numerous other irregularities remain.

The investigators will no doubt form their own view on whether, and at what point, the substantial quantity material they have gathered is sufficient – and sufficiently robust – to put a request to the Federal District Court for an Order granting them access to the original documentation. That would be the simplest way to put this matter to rest. They will no doubt use the criticisms of them on websites such as this as an indication of the strength (or otherwise) of the challenges to their findings that might be raised: and it is of course open to them to put their findings quietly before a forensic document examiner, preferably of the same political party as Mr Obama, to verify which of those findings stand up to independent scrutiny. If such an examiner were to uphold the majority of their findings (on the math, it is not at all necessary that all of their findings should be upheld: merely that a sufficient fraction are upheld), they would then be in an unassailable position to apply to the Federal District Court for an Order to bring about the disclosure of the original documents.

Monckton of Brenchley: However, I decline to be drawn into a discussion of the merits or otherwise of the investigators’ findings. I was asked to apply probability theory to those findings, and I did so.

Then there is no point in having a conversation with you since you are depending on garbage inputs which are as complete and accurate as your claims about Obama’s first executive order. As Dr Conspiracy pointed out, you are insisting that you are correct that 2+2=4 and ignoring all the evidence that the first number is actually 3 and the second one is 16. Even if your math is correct based on your assumptions (ie. irregularities the ‘investigators’ found), those assumptions have no basis in fact so your conclusions are worthless.

As but one example, pretty much every statement you make in support of your claim that the probability that ‘African’ would have been inadvertently used is 1 in 25 is incorrect. Since it was actually a valid value in use in 1961, I would say the odds of it being inadvertently used was closer to 1 in a million while the odds of it being intentionally and correctly used was closer to 99%.

Monckton of Brenchley:
“Dave B” says that “Dr Conspiracy” schooling me on my Latin must have hurt. It must indeed have hurt “Dr Conspiracy”…

Oooh, I guess it did sting a little!

Monckton of Brenchley:
“Scientist”, however, was correct to point out that my interpretation of Mr Obama’s first executive order was erroneous. I apologize. I also apologize for assuming that Mr Marinsky was Ms Maransky, and for an inadvertent misspelling of Delzell as “Dalzell”.

Now I must say that sincere apologies have a way of melting my li’l old heart. I’m sure Dr. Dellzell appreciates the correction. I’m sure Misha is amused. Now about that “erroneous”– is that another way of saying you got caught lying, by people who (unlike yourself) actually bothered to look into the facts of the matter?

Monckton of Brenchley: The investigators will no doubt form their own view on whether, and at what point, the substantial quantity material they have gathered is sufficient – and sufficiently robust – to put a request to the Federal District Court for an Order granting them access to the original documentation.

Monckton of Brenchley: I have looked at Professor de Queiroz’ findings, the most striking of which is to the effect that the image on the White House website has been heavily processed, contrary to the chain-of-custody statements that official sources have issued, which allow for no such processing.

Quite wrong, M. At some point, the document was scanned, with intent to be published on the web. Processed with the aim of compression right there, and then delivered to an office lackey’s inbox for uploading to a server. “Processed’ with no human intent or effort required, just the execution of a standard algorithm.

“Heavily” is a relative term, useless without a point of comparison, employed here by you in an attempt to promote an unjustified opinion.

Monckton of Brenchley: “Scientist”, however, was correct to point out that my interpretation of Mr Obama’s first executive order was erroneous. I apologize.

You suddenly see the light when you’ve had years to investigate the claim … and after years of having purveyed said claim, without having first investigated it yourself? LOL! Lame attempt at playing the audience for credibility. “See, I’m an honest participant, I acknowledge my errors …” Unfortunately for you, you’ve got a lengthy list of errors to apologize for. You’ve made a career of piling them up. However, if you would like to turn over a new leaf here, and start acknowledging and recanting them all, please … proceed.

So, now that you have admitted that Obama did not seal his records, does that change your “probabilities”? What do you think of Zullo’s affidavit which also misrepresented the same executive order? Do you think he is honorable enough to amend it?

Monckton of Brenchley: In my submission, and based on my probability calculations, the evidence already gathered by the Sheriff’s law enforcement investigators and made public by them is sufficient to justify any Federal District Court in issuing an order that Hawaii must grant the investigators access to the original birth records for Mr Obama for forensic examination to settle this vexed question once and for all. It is arguable that a president with nothing to hide would not have issued – as his first executive order on his first full day as President – a sealing of all of his own past records, and that he would now be anxious to permit Hawaii to show the original documentation to the Sheriff’s investigators. The fraud investigator’s rule: he who hides stuff may have stuff to hide.

Sudoku: So, now that you have admitted that Obama did not seal his records, does that change your “probabilities”? What do you think of Zullo’s affidavit which also misrepresented the same executive order? Do you think he is honorable enough to amend it?

Heh. Given that Monckton recognizes that Zullo was incorrect in his description of the executive order, what probablility does he assign that Zullo was correct with the rest of the details and claims in his affadavit?

MattR: Heh. Given that Monckton recognizes that Zullo was incorrect in his description of the executive order, what probablility does he assign that Zullo was correct with the rest of the details and claims in his affadavit?

Monckton of Brenchley: I decline to be drawn into a discussion of the merits or otherwise of the investigators’ findings. I was asked to apply probability theory to those findings, and I did so.

Hey, gorefan, thanks for reminding me. Chris, who exactly was it that asked you to do this probability-theory applying, and why did they choose you, of all people? By the way, you’re certainly touting the “merits or otherwise of the investigators’ findings.” Am I take it that you’re just unwilling to apply any vigor to a defense of those “merits”?

My name is Kevin Kesseler and a I have PhD in mathematics from Duke University. As a mathematician, I will stand behind everything that Doc C (who’s real name, I would point out, is well known around here) has said regarding your “analysis”. He has earned a reputation for fairness, intellectual rigor, and honesty and, quite frankly, your work on this issue has earned you nothing but well-deserved ridicule. There is overwhelming evidence that the LFBC is an accurate representation of President Obama’s original birth certificate and, more to the point, the information on it has been verified as correct by the only agency entitled to do so—the Hawai’ian Department of Health. As such, it would be accepted as true by any US court all the way up to the SCOTUS.

You should be ashamed of the lack of critical thinking, intellectual honesty, and due diligence displayed by your nonsensical analysis rather than attacking someone who has never shown bad faith and honestly answered any criticism he has received.

Monckton of Brenchley: It was not appropriate for the pseudonymous “Dr Conspiracy” (hereinafter “C”) to attack Professor Delzell for “doing everything he could to endorse [my] affidavit without outright lying”, and for having been guilty of “ignorance, negligence, or a deliberate attempt to mislead”.

Monckton of Brenchley: “Scientist”, however, was correct to point out that my interpretation of Mr Obama’s first executive order was erroneous. I apologize.

Apologies are wonderful things, especially since they cost so little. Your Lordship brought the matter of the Executive Order up, so I must wonder why you did so without taking the trouble to read the order and understand it. At a minimum, this impeaches you as a witness who claims to understand and support the “conclusions” of the Arizona Clown Posse, because a reasonable person would be justified in concluding that you applied the same lack of care to reading and understanding their “reports”.

In the highly unlikely event that this matter would ever actually be litigated in court and in the even more unlikely event you would be called as a witness, a diligent defense attorney might well reference our exchange to impeach your testimony as coming from someone who is intellectually lazy and pone to jumping to incorrect conclusions.

Monckton of Brenchley: Though the “flunkey” (not my word) at Mr Obama’s literary agency says Mr Obama did not supply any information to the effect that he was born in Kenya, she does not say who did supply that information

No she does not say who wrote it. I certainly don’t know who wrote it. You, however, claimed Mr Obama wrote it and that you had information to that effect. Were you lying when you said that?

Monckton of Brenchley: I have looked at Professor de Queiroz’ findings, the most striking of which is to the effect that the image on the White House website has been heavily processed, contrary to the chain-of-custody statements that official sources have issued, which allow for no such processing.

Again, not so. The White House chain of custody statements cover the paper document. Obviously, to place a paper pdf document on the internet requires scanning, unless you have invented some other way to post a paper document on line.

Monckton of Brenchley: Professor de Queiroz, for instance, concerned himself solely with the image-processing irregularities, and confirmed the investigators’ key finding that the image had indeed been heavily processed, though he thought the processing was innocent

The distinction between innocent and malign in this matter is very simple. Any adjustment of settings to enhance legibility are perfectly allowable, since an illegible document would serve no purpose. Those that would change material information-the respones in the various boxes on the form- are not. If I go to have my passport photograph taken, the photographer will, of course, illuminate the room properly so that my face is visible. Shooting in pitch blackness would be absurd. If there was a shine on my nose he might apply powder. Perfectly acceptable. If I had an earring that mae troublesome reflection, he might aske to remove it Obvious Of course, if he substituted a photo of someone else there would be grounds to object.

Monckton of Brenchley: To the extent that the findings are reliable, my conclusion follows, mathematically speaking, and I think that is now accepted by all parties here, though they may not accept the reliability of the findings themselves.

No, I don’t accept your math If there are no anomalies then the probability the document is legitimate is effectively 100%. But suppose there were some “anomalies”. You have arbitrarily assigned probabilities to them. But such probabilities must be based on real world data . If you examined 100 verified control documents processed in the same manner and found 5 such anomalies then the probability is 1/20; if you found 10, it is 1/10. But simply assigning probabilities without a sound empirical basis for them is mere hand waving.

You, sir, are the Earl of Error, the Duke of Dissembling, the Count of No Account, the Thane of Unthinking and the Lord of Lies.

From his affadavit, he lists 13 irregularities. I categorize the first 9 and image processing errors although the spacing irregularities could be categorized as “infamiliarity with the actual use of typewriters” instead.

Independent event Probability
Multiple layers of 1bit
quality ) ┐
No 1bitquality
layer represents black ) 1 in 60 (combined)
One 8bitquality
color layer ) ┘
Registrar’s signaturestamp
on its own layer 1 in 100 (actually impossible)
Registrar’s datestamp
on its own layer 1 in 100 (actually impossible)
Line spacing irregularities 1 in 10
Letter spacing irregularities 1 in 20
White halo effect around black text 1 in 10
Chromatic aberration absent 1 in 100 (actually impossible)
Certificate number out of sequence 1 in 25
Father’s birth date two years out 1 in 40
Use of “African” against written rules 1 in 25
Miscoding of Federal statistical data 1 in 25
Probability that all errors were inadvertent 1 in 75 quadrillion

Sudoku – He completely depends on the Cold Case Posse report and made no effort to verify the “facts” in it. He concludes his affadavit by saying

In this analysis I have relied upon the published results of the Cold Case Posse’s investigation. To the extent that the investigators’ results are reliable and robust, and to the extent that the probabilities I have assigned to each individual irregularity that the investigators have identified are considered reasonable, my conclusion that the probability that the White House document is genuine is vanishingly different from zero necessarily follows. Even if the probabilities I have chosen were to be considered excessively low, the fact that there are so many independent irregularities, even if absurdly high probabilities such as 1 in 2 were assigned to each irregularity, would be sufficient to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the White House document is a forgery.

Given that the CCP report is neither robust nor reliable and that Monckton’s probabilities are therefore unreasonable, the whole affadavit is useless.

Professor de Queiroz specifically identified standard PDF creation software that could produce results like that seen in the White House PDF. Your characterization of his comments is an outright lie. One of the foremost document compression experts in the world says the document doesn’t look like a fake and you choose to sip the vomit of birther cranks. You speak from total ignorance of PDF creation programs, and continue to make a fool of yourself.

Monckton of Brenchley: Professor de Queiroz, for instance, concerned himself solely with the image-processing irregularities, and confirmed the investigators’ key finding that the image had indeed been heavily processed, though he thought the processing was innocent and was seemingly unaware of the chain-of-custody statements that did not mention any processing as having taken place. Nor was he able to provide a convincing explanation of why or how automated processing software would have been capable of singling out the registrar’s date-stamp and separately the registrar’s signature-stamp and isolating each on its own exclusive data-layer. Accordingly, I was inclined to accept the investigators’ conclusions on these points: but anyone disagreeing with my decision may of course assign his own probability values to these events. Even if all of the image-processing irregularities are excluded, numerous other irregularities remain.

Here’s how you can make it up: A mockumentary on the Borscht Belt. You wander through a Borscht Belt resort, and ask all your questions in a toffee accent. The always baffled response is in a Yiddish accent.

“I say, my good man, but where is the dining hall?”
“Vhat?! You vant some brisket, maybe?”
“No, no. I want steak and eggs.”
“You think you’re in the Bronx, maybe?”

I’m in the background, playing Hava Nagila on my accordion. ♪ Sometimes there will be a klezmer band with me.♫ Just like in a Woody Allen film.

Of his thirteen anomalies these are the only ones that MRC does not explain:

Line spacing irregularities 1 in 10
Letter spacing irregularities 1 in 20
Chromatic aberration absent 1 in 100 (actually impossible)
Certificate number out of sequence 1 in 25
Father’s birth date two years out 1 in 40
Use of “African” against written rules 1 in 25
Miscoding of Federal statistical data 1 in 25

Of these “Chromatic aberration”, “Certificate number”, “Use of “African””, “Miscoding of Federal statistical data” have already been shown to not be anomalies.

Which leaves just “Line spacing irregularities” and “Letter spacing irregularities”

Dr. Conspiracy: And reportedly the sixth in succession for the Muswell Hill tube station.

There is no Muswell Hill tube station.

“At the top of a hill, Muswell Hill is not directly served by any tube or other railway stations. Bus routes travel into the centre of London. They also connect the area to nearby underground stations at Highgate, Bounds Green, East Finchley, Finsbury Park and Turnpike Lane and to train services at Alexandra Palace and Hornsey.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muswell_Hill

There is no Muswell Hill Tube Station TODAY, but there was a railway station at Muswell Hill and a tube station was planned. Nothing remains of the station, now the site of the Muswell Hill Primary School. The irony here is that the tube station is of so little importance that it was never built, although a mock-up of it exists.

I am currently working on an affadvit declaring that yesterday’s NFL game between Detroit and Houston was fixed by both teams and the refs to attain the desired result. I have identified over 20 plays where something fishy happened. The most obvious of those was Coach Schwartz getting a penalty for throwing his challenge flag which gave houston a touchdown. The odds of that happening inadvertently were 1 in 100. But even if we assume that the actual probability was only 1 in 2 for each of those 20 events, that means there is still only a 1 in 1 million probability that all of those events occurred accidentally. Therefore we have to conclude that both teams and the refs were attempting to direct the outcome to a Houston overtime victory.

Dr. Conspiracy: Plus “Father’s birth date two years out” has been shown to appear on other contemporary documents signed by Obama Sr.

Thank you, I forgot to list that one.

Under “Chromatic aberration”(CA) Monckton compares the AP’s LFBC copy which has CA to the White House pdf which doesn’t. But he never explains that the AP copy was scanned and uploaded to the internet by the various news agencies which may or may not have used the same type of scanner used by the White House. Victoria Nicks explained how the type of scanner used can determine if there is or isn’t CA on a scanned image.

It appears that Monckton based most of his analysis on the report by Mara Zebest. I wonder if he can tell us the probablities that Zebest who stated in 2008 that she lived to make a mockery of Barack Obama would produce an unbiased analysis.

“the connected set of Mandelbrot fractals” is an ill-defined term which, in my opinion, indicates yet another thing which you understand poorly at best. The Mandelbrot set is a connected planar region consisting of all points c for which the orbit of 0 under the mapping z -> z^2 + c remains bounded. It is, as such, a single fractal (i.e. one set with a non-integer dimension), so referring to a grouping of “Mandelbrot fractals” shows a lack of precision, which, in my professional experience, doesn’t tend to be exhibited by mathematicians. Furthermore, referring to this non-existent grouping as “connected” would be basically meaningless given any kind of reasonable set of fractals about which you might be talking. This is the same sort of “cargo cult” understanding (adopting the trappings without understanding the content) that is typical of the birthers—notably, “cargo cult lawyer” Dr. Orly Taitz, esq. It seems clear that (as Scientist* pointed out) you lack the rigor and critical thinking ability necessary for mathematics and science. Not to mention the intellectual honesty (unless I’ve missed you retracting all of your “probabilities” which have been debunked…).

* As someone who knows Scientist’s name and has seen his credentials, I’d just like to point out that you’re lucky that he posts anonymously so you can whine about that rather than addressing the merits of his comments (which is another thing that distinguishes you from a good scientist—in science arguments are judged on their merits, not their authors).

Monckton of Brenchley: “Scientist” goes on to say, “Benoit Mandelbrot you are not.” An interesting analogy: for the connected set of Mandelbrot fractals – aptly described as the most complex object in mathematics – is obtained by choosing numbers in an appropriate range and then repeatedly multiplying them. In that sense, then, Benoit Mandelbrot I am.

Monckton of Brenchley: “Dave B” says that “Dr Conspiracy” schooling me on my Latin must have hurt. It must indeed have hurt “Dr Conspiracy”, who a) got his “post hoc” and his “post facto” mixed up; b) cited as authority for “post hoc” an article that did not mention it; c) probably meant “post facto”, which the article he cited did mention; d) failed to note that Dr Delzell had already debunked, in detail, four allegations to the effect that I had perpetrated the post facto fallacy, or the p=1 fallacy, by allegedly having assigned a probability below unity to an event that had already occurred.

What the heck. Your claim that Dr Delzell has debunked that you fell into the p+1 fallacy is itself bunk, since one of his proofs had to do with the “African” thing and the main line of defense is based on:
“Here it is plausible to assume that the events A and B are independent,
and so multiplication is appropriate.

Plausible? When we know how the file was produced? (oh, yes, FILE, my friend, the actual document is what would have counted if someone with standing had ever been able to challenge Obama’s birth certificate).

How independent are three births to the same woman? One British medical expert once notoriously deemed it “plausible” that they were independent. “One death is a tragedy, two deaths is suspect and three deaths means murder.

Being British and a medical expert (you have claimed to have cured your own Basedow disease, AND to know the way to stop AIDS) I am sure you know what happened to that guy, right?

Interestingly, the “prosecutor’s fallacy” mentioned, is another trap you fell into.

You are assuming the rest of your probability is equivalent to “the BC is a forgery” while BC forgeries are actually very uncommon.

Oh, and I wonder how “plausible” the assertion “Onama’s BC is a forgery” is when you take into account that:

1) both a Republican and a Democratic administration have confirmed the BC is genuine. Ever herd of Full Faith and Credit? IT is in the US constitution

2) there were official birth announcements in two competing Hawaii newspapers at the time

3) for Kenya to be Obama’s birth place, you would have to assume facts which are far more statistically improbable than the probability that Obama was born in Hawaii. the main point being that we know, because of official statistics, how many US people travelled to Kenya in the relevant time period

“Dr Conspiracy” says my characterization of Professor de Queiroz’s comments on the White House document is “an outright lie”. So let us examine the passage “Dr. Conspiracy” cites from what I said.

1. I said Professor de Queiroz had concerned himself solely with the image processing irregularities. The Professor himself said that, and added that because he had not considered the question whether the original document itself had been forged he could not determine whether it had been forged or not. So my point 1 was true. Indeed, the remaining irregularities, if the forensic document examiner finds them to be true irregularities, are mathematically speaking sufficient on their own to establish that the document is a forgery.

2. I said Professor Q had confirmed the investigators’ key finding that the image had indeed been heavily processed. Professor Q said the image had been “aggressively processed”. So my point 2 was true.

3. I said Professor Q thought the processing was innocent. I assume that “Dr Conspiracy” would not dispute that point. So my point 3 was true.

4. I said that Professor Q was seemingly unaware of the chain-of-custody statements that did not mention any processing as having taken place. Professor Q did not mention the chain-of-custody statements. So my point 4, which cautiously stated that he was “seemingly unaware” of those statements, was true.

5. I said that Professor Q had not provided a convincing explanation of why or how automated processing software would have been capable of singling out the registrar’s date stamp and separately the registrar’s signature stamp and isolating each on its own exclusive data-layer. The Professor says that a software suite might have regarded the ink on the stamps as being of a slightly different color from that on other stamps on the form (or words to that effect), but I did not regard his account as convincing, because among other things he also said he had not had the time to find a software suite that would reproduce the same layering pattern as in the White House document. Since I was not convinced, my point 5 was true.

And those were the only points I made in the passage that Dr. C cites (as so often, without any argument) as being an “outright lie”. Perhaps he will now be objective enough to withdraw that foolish and baseless allegation.

“Scientist” hopes that my admission of a mistake might be used against me in court. I doubt it. For a start, the mathematical analysis I have performed stands or falls on its own merits, not on the skill of the mathematician who performs it – a point that my affidavit also makes. Secondly, willingness to admit a mistake promptly is generally a sign of honesty, not of untrustworthiness. Thirdly, once the sheriff’s investigators have verified their findings with the assistance of a suitably qualified forensic document examiner they will want to put the strongest possible case before the Federal District Court. To this end, they will list the irregularities confirmed by the forensic document examiner and – now that they know how the probabilistic analysis works – I expect they will approach a suitably qualified mathematician to carry out the assessment.

My analysis, which was commissioned by attorneys in a court case and not by the investigators because the attorneys knew I had successfully exposed frauds using this method before, will not be relevant except insofar as it has revealed to the investigators the strength of their own case – which, as my affidavit and several commenters here have pointed out, will only be a strong case to the extent that a qualified forensic document examiner upholds a sufficient fraction of their findings.

Those on this website who are not willing to countenance the possibility that the White House document is a forgery may, therefore, yet find themselves more than a little surprised by the decision of a Federal District Court, in some months’ time, to grant the investigators an Order for scrutiny of the original birth documentation in Hawaii.

In my professional opinion as a PhD in mathematics that your analysis has no merit—something I would be willing to testify to in a court of law, by the way. My judgement on your skill as a mathematician comes from my opinion of your analysis, not the other way around.

Monckton of Brenchley: For a start, the mathematical analysis I have performed stands or falls on its own merits, not on the skill of the mathematician who performs it

Which is it? Have the CCP’s “findings” been reviewed/verified by a forensic document examiner or not? Did this expert examine a paper document or the image of the birth certificate? Given that HDOH has verified the information represented on the image of the birth certificate as matching that on the original in their files, what import, if any, does an analysis of the image have?

Monckton of Brenchley: Thirdly, once the sheriff’s investigators have verified their findings with the assistance of a suitably qualified forensic document examiner they will want to put the strongest possible case before the Federal District Court.

Monckton of Brenchley: The pseudonymous “Scientist” says the sheriff’s investigators are not qualified. He is entitled to his opinion. Whether he knows it or not, their work has been reviewed by at least one registered forensic document examiner.

Mr. Pienezny appears to disagree with Professor Delzell’s conclusion that I had not perpetrated the “p = 1” fallacy, which he bizarrely calls the “p + 1” fallacy. I refer readers to Professor Delzell’s refutation of comments labelled A.1 to A.4 earlier in this thread.
Mr P, like others here, mentions the incorrect testimony of a doctor who held that three cot-deaths of children born to the same mother were independent events and suggested murder on the mother’s part. However, the three children were born to the same mother, so the deaths could not be regarded independent events. By contrast, the quantity and variety of the irregularities found by the sheriff’s law-enforcement investigators in the White House document suggest that, if the irregularities were inadvertent, they were independent of one another. Certainly Mr P does not point out, with reasons, any two events that I treated as independent but which he would treat as mutually dependent.
I do not claim to be a medical expert, and I am not aware of Basedow Disease: nor is it clear what that has to do with an objective mathematical technique which, as Dr. Delzell’s affidavit makes clear, does not depend for its effectiveness on the skill or otherwise of the mathematician. However, Moorfields Eye Hospital has recently discharged me from its patient list because there are few signs of the Stage III Graves’ orbitopathy from which I am recorded as having suffered for many years. Spontaneous remissions of this kind are not unknown, but they are rare, and the remission occurred after, and perhaps because of, the administration of a medication that has been found efficacious against certain infections and against certain auto-immune diseases that may perhaps have an infectious aetiology. In particular, both in vivo and in vitro, the medication has been shown to palliate HIV more safely and inexpensively than existing treatments, though we are advised that achieving outright cure of this difficult virus by our method, and I must stress that until clinical trials are complete and have been independently reviewed we cannot – and I do not – make any claims.
Mr. P again trots out statements about the “full faith and credit” Article in the U.S. Constitution, by which he expects me to believe whatever Hawaii has revealed. However, as I have repeatedly pointed out in this thread, the “full faith and credit” Article is not to be construed as a get-out-of-jail-free card for States that perpetrate forgery and fraud. If the investigators’ conclusions are borne out by independent examination on the part of a suitably qualified forensic document examiner, then my mathematical analysis would suggest the White House document is a forgery.
As to the “official birth announcements in two competing Hawaii newspapers”, I refer Mr. P to the recent affidavit of the sheriff’s chief investigator, who has considered that question.
Finally, I have repeatedly stated that I do not know and am disinclined to speculate on where Mr Obama was born. He may or may not have been born in Kenya, as his biography written for his literary agents said for 17 years he was, but it is not for me to say.

You may find yourself surprised by the decision of a Federal court, in some months time, to assess significant sanctions to birther litigants—something that, in my opinion, has a much greater probability of occurring. This will likely have a chilling effect on the future of such frivolous suits. On the bright side, at least this will save you the embarrassment of having your “analysis” ruled inadmissible in court.

Monckton of Brenchley: Those on this website who are not willing to countenance the possibility that the White House document is a forgery may, therefore, yet find themselves more than a little surprised by the decision of a Federal District Court, in some months’ time, to grant the investigators an Order for scrutiny of the original birth documentation in Hawaii.

Other than a fresh stream of rubes to pander to, what is Monckton’s dog in the great birfer hunt? I can’t imagine any political or ideological motivation he might have. Other than (haha) an altruistic devotion to truth.

Birfers love to offer cash inducements, Monckton has a history of doing the same. He’s even paid them out when silly enough to allowed himself too little wiggle room. Why no multi-million pound (or is he dealing in euros these days?) prize for replicating the “heavy processing” seen in the PDF in question? As disingenuous as such an offer would be, and as infinite the chance of a birfer welching always are, it’d be worth taking a few days.

Monckton of Brenchley:
Mr. Pienezny appears to disagree with Professor Delzell’s conclusion that I had not perpetrated the “p = 1” fallacy, which he bizarrely calls the “p + 1” fallacy. I refer readers to Professor Delzell’s refutation of comments labelled A.1 to A.4 earlier in this thread.
Mr P, like others here, mentions the incorrect testimony of a doctor who held that three cot-deaths of children born to the same mother were independent events and suggested murder on the mother’s part. However, the three children were born to the same mother, so the deaths could not be regarded independent events. By contrast, the quantity and variety of the irregularities found by the sheriff’s law-enforcement investigators in the White House document suggest that, if the irregularities were inadvertent, they were independent of one another. Certainly Mr P does not point out, with reasons, any two events that I treated as independent but which he would treat as mutually dependent.
I do not claim to be a medical expert, and I am not aware of Basedow Disease: nor is it clear what that has to do with an objective mathematical technique which, as Dr. Delzell’s affidavit makes clear, does not depend for its effectiveness on the skill or otherwise of the mathematician. However, Moorfields Eye Hospital has recently discharged me from its patient list because there are few signs of the Stage III Graves’ orbitopathy from which I am recorded as having suffered for many years. Spontaneous remissions of this kind are not unknown, but they are rare, and the remission occurred after, and perhaps because of, the administration of a medication that has been found efficacious against certain infections and against certain auto-immune diseases that may perhaps have an infectious aetiology. In particular, both in vivo and in vitro, the medication has been shown to palliate HIV more safely and inexpensively than existing treatments, though we are advised that achieving outright cure of this difficult virus by our method, and I must stress that until clinical trials are complete and have been independently reviewed we cannot – and I do not – make any claims.
Mr. P again trots out statements about the “full faith and credit” Article in the U.S. Constitution, by which he expects me to believe whatever Hawaii has revealed. However, as I have repeatedly pointed out in this thread, the “full faith and credit” Article is not to be construed as a get-out-of-jail-free card for States that perpetrate forgery and fraud. If the investigators’ conclusions are borne out by independent examination on the part of a suitably qualified forensic document examiner, then my mathematical analysis would suggest the White House document is a forgery.
As to the “official birth announcements in two competing Hawaii newspapers”, I refer Mr. P to the recent affidavit of the sheriff’s chief investigator, who has considered that question.
Finally, I have repeatedly stated that I do not know and am disinclined to speculate on where Mr Obama was born. He may or may not have been born in Kenya, as his biography written for his literary agents said for 17 years he was, but it is not for me to say.

You can talk about minutia all you want, but if the Hawaii DOH says the information on the document mathes what they have on file, nothing else matters.

Monckton of Brenchley: For a start, the mathematical analysis I have performed stands or falls on its own merits…

You got that right.

Monckton of Brenchley:
Secondly, willingness to admit a mistake promptly is generally a sign of honesty, not of untrustworthiness.

Except when it’s a sign of getting busted.
blockquote cite=”comment-227077″>

Monckton of Brenchley:
Thirdly, once the sheriff’s investigators have verified their findings with the assistance of a suitably qualified forensic document examiner

As if.

Monckton of Brenchley:
My analysis, which was commissioned by attorneys in a court case and not by the investigators because the attorneys knew I had successfully exposed frauds using this method before, will not be relevant

Are you at liberty to tell us who those attorneys are, to what court case you are referring, and how your analysis was used? Oh, and could you tell us about your success in exposing frauds? There wasn’t any trenchcoat involved, was there?

Monckton of Brenchley:
Those on this website who are not willing to countenance the possibility that the White House document is a forgery may, therefore, yet find themselves more than a little surprised by the decision of a Federal District Court, in some months’ time, to grant the investigators an Order for scrutiny of the original birth documentation in Hawaii.

I believe the term of art here has become “Any day now.” You’d have to drag those “investigators” kicking and screaming into any courtroom with this nonsense. That’s the last place they’d want to go with this. The only competence they’ve demonstrated is in the utter thoroughness with which they’ve corrupted and polluted their own work, rendering it useless as real evidence.

Whether he knows it or not, their work has been reviewed by at least one registered forensic document examiner.

At 3:57 PM, you said:

Thirdly, once the sheriff’s investigators have verified their findings with the assistance of a suitably qualified forensic document examiner.

The first statement claims the review has already occurred, the second implies it may occur in the future. Which is it Your Lordship, Mr Viscount of non-Veracity? Inconsistencies in testimony are to cross-examining attorneys like raw meat to a pride of hungry lions.

And to think you said: “direct falsehoods (such as “Scientist’s” statement that Mr Obama’s first executive order was not an order to seal his Presidential records, when it was) are to be avoided” Of course my statement was, as you later admitted NOT a falsehood, direct or indirect,

I would pay good money to see you or Zullo or any of the Arizona Clown Posse cross-examined by even a semi-competent attorney.

Any events which depended on the scanning algorithms and/or hardware used would obviously fail to be independent and all of the events which did not have been shown to be innocuous. The Maricopa Cold Case Posse has been shown to have lied regarding their investigation and refused to even acknowledge the fact, let alone retract the falsehood. Not to mention their obvious aversion to letting their conclusions get anywhere near a court of law.

Your analysis sir, is nothing more than a very bad joke which no one cares about any more save a few dishonest whackjobs and those of us who follow their antics.

Monckton of Brenchley: By contrast, the quantity and variety of the irregularities found by the sheriff’s law-enforcement investigators in the White House document suggest that, if the irregularities were inadvertent, they were independent of one another.

Monckton of Brenchley: Finally, I have repeatedly stated that I do not know and am disinclined to speculate on where Mr Obama was born. He may or may not have been born in Kenya, as his biography written for his literary agents said for 17 years he was, but it is not for me to say.

Monckton may have been confused by the conflicting statements of Mike Zullo who at first said that their work had been vetted by credential forensic document examiners, but then at the last press conference said that no credentialed forensic document examiner would touch the thing.

Scientist: Whether he knows it or not, their work has been reviewed by at least one registered forensic document examiner.

Basedow is what Germans call Graves. But I think you were aware of that.

Monckton of Brenchley: However, as I have repeatedly pointed out in this thread, the “full faith and credit” Article is not to be construed as a get-out-of-jail-free card for States that perpetrate forgery and fraud. If the investigators’ conclusions are borne out by independent examination on the part of a suitably qualified forensic document examiner, then my mathematical analysis would suggest the White House document is a forgery.

Oh, you are now accusing the entire Hawaii state of forging this BC and that presumably, since 1961 – since you cannot explain the newspaper announcements otherwise. And why did they do that? Bilderberg? The Illuminati? ZOG against the Jesuits?

“Suitably qualified” – I have a suspicion I know whom you would call suitable. Certainly not someone able to pass a Daubert Test.

The investigators will no doubt form their own view on whether, and at what point, the substantial quantity material they have gathered is sufficient – and sufficiently robust – to put a request to the Federal District Court for an Order granting them access to the original documentation. That would be the simplest way to put this matter to rest. They will no doubt use the criticisms of them on websites such as this as an indication of the strength (or otherwise) of the challenges to their findings that might be raised: and it is of course open to them to put their findings quietly before a forensic document examiner, preferably of the same political party as Mr Obama, to verify which of those findings stand up to independent scrutiny. If such an examiner were to uphold the majority of their findings (on the math, it is not at all necessary that all of their findings should be upheld: merely that a sufficient fraction are upheld), they would then be in an unassailable position to apply to the Federal District Court for an Order to bring about the disclosure of the original documents.

The “investigators” in Arizona are never going to turn over their “findings” to the Federal District Court.

For one thing, even if Zullo were a real police officer (he is actually a used car salesman playing cops and robbers), the appropriate agency to which he should submit evidence of a Federal crime is the U.S. Attorney’s office.

In addition, even if it could be proven that the image of the birth certificate on the White House website is a forgery, no crime has been committed, and certainly no crime has been committed in Arizona. There is no evidence that President Obama has ever used the birth certificate which is on the White House website for any official purpose anywhere, much less in Arizona.

Since no crime related to the birth certificate has been committed in Arizona, Arpaio and his “posse” of wannabe cops have no jurisdiction over anything. So you have been spinning your wheels, wasting your time, and in general making of laughingstock of yourself by getting involved with those charlatans.

Monckton of Brenchley: They will no doubt use the criticisms of them on websites such as this as an indication of the strength (or otherwise) of the challenges to their findings that might be raised: and it is of course open to them to put their findings quietly before a forensic document examiner, preferably of the same political party as Mr Obama, to verify which of those findings stand up to independent scrutiny.

How come they didn’t just do that to begin with? (And Mara doesn’t count.)

Charles N. Delzell: This contrasts with the birth certificate situation, where, according to the investigators, some features of the birth certificate were objectively wrong or irregular (e.g., the word “African” on the line for race in 1962).

Keith: You do your profession and reputation no good what-so-ever by falling into the cesspit with Monckton and the rest of the merry band of pranksters.

As I think about this whole affidavit business, it gets stranger and stranger.

Monckton is not a mathematician, and he makes his conclusions contingent on a third party’s data. He doesn’t validate his assumptions to any reasonable extent (at best we get an appeal to anonymous experts) and indeed he swallows a long list of lies hook line and sinker. So if he has not added validation and has no expertise on the analysis side, why is he writing a paper? The only value Monckton adds is his notoriety.

The only conclusion I can come up with that makes sense is that he was paid for his notoriety.

Monckton of Brenchley: I have looked at Professor de Queiroz’ findings, the most striking of which is to the effect that the image on the White House website has been heavily processed, contrary to the chain-of-custody statements that official sources have issued, which allow for no such processing.

Professor de Queiroz was referring to processing by the scanning algorithm, not by some post scanning human dictated methodology.

It may come as a surprise to you, Christopher, but scanners have computers in them, and often pass their output to other computers for further processing. Part of what makes a computer a computer is the ‘Central Processing Unit’ or ‘CPU’. The purpose of that device is to ‘process’ information.

The “Mixed Raster Content” algorithm, which Professor de Queiroz is largely credited with inventing (justifiable appeal to authority), is a methodology used by almost every scanner device on the planet to faithfully reproduce documents in as small a file as practical and within the parameters set by the user. Scanners do not, by default, create bit by bit data files.

Notice the title refers to ‘Compression’, which is an outcome that requires data ‘processing’. The more a document is compressed requires ‘heavier’ processing.

If you review the article even cursorily, you will discover several colored diagrams that demonstrate how the MRC algorithm divides an image into multiple ‘planes’, which in the popular vernacular have come to be called ‘layers’.

In any event, the ‘chain of custody’ statements describe the production and transport of the physical paper documents. I don’t remember that the ‘chain of custody’ statements refer to the scanning of those documents for publication on the internet or for supply to the gathered White House press room.

Monckton of Brenchley: The pseudonymous “Lupin”, who appears not to have read what I had written before attempting to attack it, says the authorities in Hawaii have certified the White House document as genuine and that is that. I explicitly dealt with that point in my earlier reply, pointing out that the “full faith and credit” Article in the U.S. Constitution is not to be construed as giving a license to any State to perpetrate or participate in forgery or fraud, and that that Article offers no protection to a State where evidence of forgery is sufficiently compelling to cast legitimate doubt upon that State’s certification of the forgery as genuine.

So in effect you confess to being Isidore Beaujolet, notorious French pedophile wanted by the French police. (You look a lot like him.) It is clear that the evidence of forgery by the UK authorities in issuing you a fake British passport is compelling enough to cast a legitimate doubt on your true identity.

Should I report you to Interpol using your own words? Perhaps you should provide us with irrefutable evidence that you are who you claim to be in order to clear the matter first?

Monckton of Brenchley: Mr. P again trots out statements about the “full faith and credit” Article in the U.S. Constitution, by which he expects me to believe whatever Hawaii has revealed. However, as I have repeatedly pointed out in this thread, the “full faith and credit” Article is not to be construed as a get-out-of-jail-free card for States that perpetrate forgery and fraud. If the investigators’ conclusions are borne out by independent examination on the part of a suitably qualified forensic document examiner, then my mathematical analysis would suggest the White House document is a forgery.

The so-called “Monckton” (there are legitimate doubts as to his identity) would have us believe that States perpetrate forgery and fraud in their handling of birth records. Such an argument cannot be the justification for a Quixotic and delusional “fishing expedition” unless one has compelling evidence of such criminal activities and disclose them.

Not only the alleged “Monckton” has provided no such evidence, but (1) he has not gone to the proper authorities to report the evidence of said criminal activities in his possession, indicating that he himself may be in some fashion connected to such criminal activities (maybe he is looking for a plea bargain in exchange for what he knows?), and (2) he has steadfastly refused to prove his own identity, leading some to believe he might be Isidore Beaujolet, a French pedophile wanted by the police.

Whichever way one looks at it, the activities of the alleged “Monckton” are highly suspicious and I, for one, believe he should be reported to the authorities.

Now a rational individual would grasp the fundamental principle that the map is not the country, in other words a scanned image of a physical document is not the physical original.

Since the physical document and its content has been repeatedly confirmed as accurate and legally sufficient by the legally constituted custodians of the record then at best all your blather around the image is at best intellectual masturbation.

bovril: Since the physical document and its content has been repeatedly confirmed as accurate and legally sufficient by the legally constituted custodians of the record then at best all your blather around the image is at best intellectual masturbation.

Dr. Conspiracy: As I think about this whole affidavit business, it gets stranger and stranger.
Monckton is not a mathematician, and he makes his conclusions contingent on a third party’s data. He doesn’t validate his assumptions to any reasonable extent (at best we get an appeal to anonymous experts) and indeed he swallows a long list of lies hook line and sinker. So if he has not added validation and has no expertise on the analysis side, why is he writing a paper? The only value Monckton adds is his notoriety.
The only conclusion I can come up with that makes sense is that he was paid for his notoriety.

Doc, have you given any thought about a rationale for the involvement of Associate Chair of Mathematics for Instruction at Louisiana State University, Dr. Charles N. Delzell, in this strange enterprise?

I’ve thought about it. My best guess is that he’s a birther (and a WND reader) and his motivation was providing support for Monckton. In his email to me, the Chairman of the Math Department said in effect that he didn’t know why.

I can speculate that Delzell started off to say “the math is right” but strayed into support for the application of the theory and buying into some of Monckton’s (or more accurately Zullo’s) assumptions.

American Mzungu: Doc, have you given any thought about a rationale for the involvement of Associate Chair of Mathematics for Instruction at Louisiana State University, Dr. Charles N. Delzell, in this strange enterprise?

American Mzungu: Doc, have you given any thought about a rationale for the involvement of Associate Chair of Mathematics for Instruction at Louisiana State University, Dr. Charles N. Delzell, in this strange enterprise?

I’m thinking Delzell is like Corsi – Inside, he’s a bigot.

Remember William Pierce – A physics professor who wrote The Turner Diaries, was the founder of the National Alliance, and the most important white nationalist in the United States.

Dr. Conspiracy: The Sunahara certificate seems to be a special case because it was a neonatal death.

An alternate theory for Virginia’s high certificate number is that the BCs were collected monthly, sorted geographically and alphabetized within each geographic region before being numbered sequentially. According to the NCHS, the County of Honolulu is divided into two geographic regions, the City of Honolulu and the rest of the county. Because Virginia was not born at Kapiolani or even in the city limits of Honolulu, her BC number does not fall sequentailly within the geographic grouping that included the Kapiolani births.

Dr. Conspiracy:
I’ve thought about it. My best guess is that he’s a birther (and a WND reader) and his motivation was providing support for Monckton. In his email to me, the Chairman of the Math Department said in effect that he didn’t know why.

Charles N. Delzell is a registered Republican in East Baton Rouge Parish. His father died at the age of 91 last year, so Delzell is of the appropriate age and has the correct skin color to be a birther.

Somewhat ironically, his father was a recognized expert on the anti-Fascist resistance in Italy.

Dr. Conspiracy: I can speculate that Delzell started off to say “the math is right” but strayed into support for the application of the theory and buying into some of Monckton’s (or more accurately Zullo’s) assumptions.

I agree that it is likely that he is a birther, or he may be a very smart guy with little common sense.

If you only hear the birther side of things, it is not that hard to see how someone could fall for their arguments. “How did he go to Pakistan when Americans were banned from travel there?”, “Why did he seal all his records on the first day of his Presidency?” are reasonably questions, if you don’t have additional sources of information or if you don’t do addtional research.

Or if you already have a bias against the President.

I would liken it to the very smart people who fall for the Nigerian 419 scam emails. They so badly want to believe that there is a pot of money waiting for them, they lose their judgement and common sense.

I got my first 419 scan via fax, before email as the thing, and certainly before I had ever heard of a 419 scan. What did I do? I dropped it by the local FBI office. Some things just don’t make sense on their face, and the President being a foreigner is one of them. I can almost excuse someone for falling for this in the middle of 2008, but not in 2012.

gorefan: I would liken it to the very smart people who fall for the Nigerian 419 scam emails. They so badly want to believe that there is a pot of money waiting for them, they lose their judgement and common sense.

Paul Pieniezny: The Lord Monckton corollary: There is no internet statement by Lord Mockton that is not stupid or incredible enough for at least one intelligent person to think that they are really talking to Sacha Baron Cohen.

I realized the person on this forum was Cohen’s assistant. I wrote what I did, to see what response it would elicit.

gorefan: I would liken it to the very smart people who fall for the Nigerian 419 scam emails. They so badly want to believe that there is a pot of money waiting for them, they lose their judgement and common sense.

My wife has twice fallen for pyramid schemes, which has caused discord.

Ah, I see, you were thinking of the film, The Third Man. I was thinking of Aristotle’s third man critique of Plato.

In that regard, I suppose I should spell out that my patent pending technique for copying paper documents without scanning involves the simple fact that you need not scan something if you have direct access to its true ideal Form. Of course, given Aristotle’s third man critique, you need third man solutions to get around the problems with the Platonic model. I would explain more, but that’s what the patent is for. ;-}

Of course, this means I also am prepared for birthers in case they ever gain access to the original documents stored in Hawaii, because at that point they naturally will not be satisfied and they then will demand access to the Platonic Forms, and I will have the patent.

Well, Johnny Rivers Anton Karasmore fun, in the meantime!

Dave B.: Well I was thinking along the lines of something with a zither, but I can’t argue with Johnny Rivers.

Ah, I see, you were thinking of the film, The Third Man. I was thinking of Aristotle’s third man critique of Plato.

In that regard, I suppose I should spell out that my patent pending technique for copying paper documents without scanning involves the simple fact that you need not scan something if you have direct access to its true ideal Form. Of course, given Aristotle’s third man critique, you need third man solutions to get around the problems with the Platonic model. I would explain more, but that’s what the patent is for. ;-}

Of course, this means I also am prepared for birthers in case they ever gain access to the original documents stored in Hawaii, because at that point they naturally will not be satisfied and they then will demand access to the Platonic Forms, and I will have the patent.

Well, Johnny Rivers and Anton Karas are more fun, in the meantime!

Dave B.: Well I was thinking along the lines of something with a zither, but I can’t argue with Johnny Rivers.

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